


Like You

by kamanzi



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Babysitting, F/F, Found Family, Human AU, Modern AU, Pregnancy, Sharing a Bed, They're In Love Your Honor, intended parent adora, medical terminology that some might find gross, other relationships/characters/tags to be added, surrogate catra
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 56,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25005058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamanzi/pseuds/kamanzi
Summary: "Maybe she shouldn’t be trading baby-name ideas with the woman who was supposed to disappear from her life as soon as her child was born, even in jest. But, then again, Adora really did love that laugh."Adora decides that she's ready to be a parent. Without a partner, and incapable of doing the dang thing herself, Adora elects to use artificial reproductive technology, including engaging the services of a surrogate. In doing so, she finds that the professional relationship that she's supposed to have with her future child's birth mother gets kind of (read: super) complicated.
Relationships: Adora & Bow & Glimmer (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Mermista/Sea Hawk (She-Ra)
Comments: 177
Kudos: 699
Collections: Shera





	1. Before

The conversation was not part of Adora’s plan—at least, not for that morning. She’d wanted to do it somewhere more intimate. Private. Maybe even later that night, if they’d agreed to come over for dinner. But as she walked from her car to the cafe, Adora was given every sign that now was the moment. Every sign being, of course, that it seemed like every single baby she passed was staring at her expectantly.

The moment that Adora joined Glimmer and Bow at their table, tucked into a corner between a pillar and the window, she came right out with it.

“I think I want to have a baby,” she said as if she were commenting on the weather (which was much too hot to be sitting outside, truth be told, but Adora was grateful that her friends had managed to score a table under an umbrella).

Adora’s casual tone, however, did nothing to lighten the weight of her news. Bow, who had been taking a sip of water at precisely the wrong moment, choked into his glass and soaked the front of his crop top. Glimmer went slack-jawed and, while giving Bow a few solid thumps with her fist between his shoulder blades, could only reply, “What?”

“I said I think I want to have a baby,” Adora said again. Then she picked up her menu and began perusing it. “Do you guys know what you’re getting yet? I always get the cast-iron baked eggs, because, duh, they’re unbelievable. But should I—”

“Adora, stop talking,” Glimmer said. “Back up. Start again. You think you want to have a _baby?_ Like, a real, actual, living human baby?”

“God, preferably,” Adora responded with a wince. “The alternative’s kind of dark, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry.” Glimmer placed her hands on the table and leaned forward. “Am I missing something? Something between, _Hello,_ and, _I think I want to have a baby?_ Because I am not following.”

“I’ve gotta side with Glimmer on this one,” Bow said, a bit hoarsely, as he took a tentative second attempt at his water glass. He swallowed, then frowned. “Where did this come from?”

With a sigh, Adora put her menu back down. Scratching the back of her neck, she said, “See, I was hoping I could breeze past that part.”

“That was never in any world going to be possible, Adora,” Bow replied.

“A girl can dream.”

“So, like,” Glimmer said as she began fidgeting with her chin-length hair. She’d just had it done in a pink-and-purple ombre the day before. This was Adora’s first time seeing it—in person, at least, as Glimmer had spammed the group chat with before and after pics. Adora figured she would have spent the first five minutes of brunch complimenting Glimmer on it. But, in her haste, that was all out the window now. Obviously. “Are you serious? Like, you actually want to have a baby, you think?”

“Uh, yeah,” Adora said, turning her gaze to her fingers, which were covertly ripping each other’s cuticles to shreds under the table. “I do.”

“Aren’t we kind of young to be family planning right now?” Glimmer asked.

Bow cut in with a smirk. “We’re thirty. Isn’t this exactly the time people start doing that?”

Glimmer lightly batted his shoulder beside her with her left hand. “I guess what I mean is, isn’t this kind of sudden? Or have you been thinking about this for a while?”

Adora looked up at her friends. “It’s kind of been a while, honestly. Since. . . you know.”

Glimmer and Bow exchanged a significant look. They didn’t need to say anything for Adora to tell that they knew exactly to what she was referring.

“That was going to be my next question,” Bow said. “But I’ll bookmark that. So, a few years, then?”

“Yeah.” Adora nodded. “When it happened, it made me really look at how much harder it was going to be for me, you know, when and if I ever wanted to start a family. And at first I was like, psh, whatever, right? But it kind of stuck with me, and I’ve been thinking about it more and more often, especially this past year, for some reason. And now—” She shrugged. “I want to get going on it. And it seems like the perfect time, I think? I mean, work’s settled down a lot. And it might take a while to sort out, so I don’t want to start too late, before it would get too hard on me to be, you know, a single mom.”

“A _mom_ ,” Glimmer repeated. “Jesus. You’re serious about this.”

Adora cracked a smile. “Yeah. I really am.”

Glimmer mirrored the smile, albeit a bit more weakly. “But don’t you want to wait a little longer? I mean, who says you have to do this by yourself? What if you meet someone who would want to do this with you? Especially _now_! I bet there are literally, _literally_ , hundreds of women in this city who wouldn’t hesitate to throw themselves at you.”

Adora rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to answer, but Bow got there first. “It sounds like Adora doesn’t want to wait to take that chance, though. Between finding someone, dating, getting serious, it could be a couple more years. And _then_ they’d have to start the baby-making plans over from scratch.”

“Exactly,” Adora said, grinning at Bow gratefully. “I’m fine with doing this on my own. I _want_ to. And if I meet someone, then they’ll have to be someone who fits into my family, and not the other way around.”

Glimmer heaved a great sigh, but her smile widened. “I’ve never been able to change your mind before, anyway, once you’ve made it. I don’t assume I’ll be able to do it now.”

“Thank you for your patience,” said a somewhat quavering, tenor voice. Their server, a slight, blond man with a notepad and pencil in hand, had arrived at their table. “Welcome to the Fright Zone Cafe, can I get you guys anything to drink to start?”

Glimmer and Bow ordered mimosas, but before Adora could finish reviewing the drinks menu, the waiter spoke again.

“Oh, my god!” he said, and Adora looked up to find that he’d covered his mouth with his hand. “Oh, my god, it’s you. You’re the lawyer that’s all over the internet right now! You did the—the case against that adoption agency, didn’t you? The one that wouldn’t let those gay guys adopt their foster kid?”

“Oh,” Adora said, feeling a blush creep across her face, bright and hot. “Yeah, that’s me. I was their lawyer.”

“Oh, my _god_ ,” he said again, and clasped his hands together in front of his chest. “Can I get a picture? Or—no, I’m sorry, that’s really unprofessional. I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s okay!” Adora said, waving her hands. “I’ll take a picture with you. Do you want one of my friends to take it?”

The waiter’s face went red to the edges of his hairline. “No, no! I can just do a selfie if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” Adora said, getting to her feet as the man pulled his phone out of his apron. “What’s your name?”

“Kyle,” he squeaked. Then, he cleared his throat. “Sorry. I’m Kyle.”

“Adora,” she said, moving to put her arm around his shoulder. “Is this okay?”

“Yes!” Kyle said before holding his phone aloft and snapping a picture. As he stepped away, he added, “Thank you so much. My boyfriend is going to absolutely freak. He works here, but he’s not on shift right now. Called in, actually, I covered. I guess it doesn’t matter, heh. But _thank you_ and, again, I’m so sorry for interrupting.”

“That’s okay,” Glimmer drawled, leaning her chin upon her hand. “You can just comp our drinks to make up for it.”

“ _Glimmer_ ,” Adora scolded. Turning back to Kyle, she said, “That’s really not necessary.”

“No, I’d love to!” Kyle said. “Two mimosas and. . . ?”

“Three mimosas will be fine,” Adora said, sitting in her chair again.

“I’ll have them right out, and I’ll take your food order then. Thank you, thank you!”

As soon as Kyle had gone, Adora turned on Glimmer, who was wearing the epitome of a shit-eating grin. “Glimmer, you can’t do that every time!”

“Why not?” Glimmer replied, leaning back in her seat. “They’re always happy to do it. If someone is going to interrupt us every time we’re out in public now, we might as well get something out of it. Babe, back me up, here.”

Bow shook his head, smiling. “It does seem a little extortive. But I’m not one to turn down the fruits of Adora’s glory.”

Adora groaned, “It’ll be over in a week. Enjoy it while you can, I guess.”

“I don’t know, it’s been a month already,” Bow said. But he held his water glass up, and added, “Well, to Adora, her fifteen minutes of fame, and our future nibling.”

“Here, here,” Glimmer concurred, clinking her glass with Bow’s. “May they drive our dear Adora crazy with happiness and sleep deprivation.”

Adora laughed and raised her glass to meet theirs. “Thank you, that’s very encouraging.”

“Now,” Bow said, steepling his fingers and resting his jaw upon them. “Let’s talk names.”

  
  


The agency’s waiting room was clean, but that was about all that could be said for it. The chairs could definitely use some reupholstering, and the carpet was the same blue-speckled type that had obviously been installed twenty years ago when the building was constructed. Sandwiched between Glimmer and Bow, Adora reviewed pamphlets on the pros and cons of circumcision just for something to do.

Glimmer elbowed Adora before too long. “Is this really the best place available? I thought the firm had connections to some, you know, high-dollar places.”

“One,” Adora said, “we represent a couple of those places, so I can’t use them for conflict-of-interest reasons. Two, the really nice ones that we _don’t_ represent are the religious ones, and for obvious reasons they’re not the biggest fan of me right now.”

“Right,” Bow said with a chuckle.

“So, here we are,” Adora said, turning back to her literature. _Yeesh_ , she thought, as she hurriedly flipped past a diagram. She felt she’d never be versed enough in male anatomy to make a qualified decision on the matter. But she guessed she had a little less than a year to prepare, and that was assuming it all went as quickly as possible.

Adora’s hands stilled, her eyes staring unseeingly at a different, worse diagram. A _year_. This could really, truly happen within the _year_.

“It’ll be fine, Adora,” Bow said cheerfully. “This place isn’t bad at all. I’ve had plenty of clients use them, and they’re usually pretty satisfied.”

“Usually?” Glimmer asked.

Bow half-grimaced. “The case manager’s hard to get along with, apparently. But she does good work, I hear.” He patted Adora’s elbow. “Don’t worry about it. You’re going—What on earth are you reading?”

“Nothing!” Adora said, slapping the pamphlet closed between her hands.

The door by the front desk swung open, and a tall, dark woman stood at its threshold.

“Adora Stevenson?” she asked, her voice low and measured.

Adora stood, shoving the brochure into Bow’s hands. “That’s me.”

The woman nodded her head and beckoned down the hallway behind her. “This way, please.”

Adora followed, turning only once when Glimmer whispered, “Good luck,” to throw a thumbs up back at her. Once Adora passed the door, the woman closed it behind them and began to lead her way down the hall.

“My name is Shadow Weaver Toussaint,” the woman explained. “I am the case manager of this agency.”

“Nice to meet you,” Adora said, swallowing the lump of nerves crawling up her throat. “I’m Adora.”

“Yes, I know who you are,” Shadow Weaver said, turning the corner and entering an office at the back. As she waved her hand at a chair for Adora to take, she wound around a desk and sat behind it. “You are very well known right now, especially in our community.”

“Our community?” Adora asked, sitting.

“The adoption and assisted reproductive technology community.”

“Oh, yeah,” Adora said with a strangled chuckle. “That makes sense.”

Shadow Weaver pulled a file in front of her. Flipping through it, she said, “I understand that you are seeking either adoption or surrogacy services, is that correct?”

“Yes,” Adora said. “Whichever you recommend.”

“Are you unable to have children of your own?”

Adora had known it for years, of course, but it still felt like a punch to the gut every time. “Correct.”

“Would you be able to use your own eggs for in vitro?”

“No—” Adora cleared her throat. “No, those are gone.”

“And what are your financial resources like?” Shadow Weaver asked, pulling out a single sheet and reviewing it. Her eyes widened, only perceptible under Adora’s careful scrutiny. “I see. You’re quite comfortable, aren’t you?”

Adora scratched behind her ear and looked at the ceiling. “Yeah, my—my resources are fine. That’s not going to be an issue.”

Shadow Weaver replaced the sheet and turned to a new, blank page. In a tone that was maybe a bit friendlier than it had been previously, Shadow Weaver chatted as she took notes. “Now, of course, you will have to submit to a formal home study and a federal and state background check. But I see in your file here that you have a steady occupation and income, that you own your own home, wonderful references, and on and on. I don’t anticipate any problems with your being qualified to engage with our agency.”

“Oh!” Adora said, and the tension drained quickly from her shoulders. “Really? That’s great news!”

Shadow Weaver smiled indulgently as she swiveled in her chair to retrieve two binders from the shelves behind her. “Now, it is my opinion that surrogacy is the best option for you. It is more costly than a typical, private adoption, but I believe that will be no issue here. This gives you better control of everything, from conception to birth. It tends to be faster, as single parents can remain on the adoption waiting list for years. It is usually also low risk, comparatively.”

“Low risk?” Adora asked, cocking her head to the side.

Shadow Weaver placed the two binders in front of Adora as she continued. “In surrogacy, the biological donors sign waivers before the pregnancy is initiated. This results in a much lower chance of either backing out. And, if they do, you will be entitled to file a lawsuit for damages through the terms of the surrogacy contract. Typical adoptions, where the biological parents become pregnant before seeking the matching services of an adoption agency, are not so protected.” After a moment, Shadow Weaver narrowed her eyes. “I thought you were an adoption attorney yourself?”

“Oh, no,” Adora explained, staring at the binder’s fronts. “I do more of the human-rights violation stuff. My friend Bow—he’s out in the waiting room, actually—he’s the adoption attorney. My other friend out there, Glimmer, she does criminal defense. We’re all at the same firm, it’s pretty big. But—” She cut herself off, upon catching Shadow Weaver’s uninterested gaze. She smiled bashfully. “Uh. I guess it’s not important. Sorry. I ramble when I’m nervous.”

“No matter,” Shadow Weaver said. She placed her hand on the binder to Adora’s left. “This is the inventory of sperm donors. All are anonymous, so you will not see a name or a picture for any of them. Instead, you’ll find a one-sheet of basic biographical information, physical traits, social and medical histories, et cetera.” Shadow Weaver moved her hand to the thinner binder on Adora’s right. “This is the inventory of surrogates. You’ll see the same background study, but you’ll also be provided with a picture. Their names remain anonymous until the match has been completed.”

“There’s way less surrogates than sperm donors,” Adora remarked, taking the binders and hefting them between her hands. “Why?”

Shadow Weaver hummed. “Yes, well. I’m sure I don’t have to explain how much easier it is for sperm donors to lend themselves to the process than it is for surrogates. As a result, you get less of a turnout for the latter.”

Adora grimaced. “Gross. Say no more. Got it.”

Chuckling appreciatively from deep in her throat, Shadow Weaver leaned back in her chair, hands clasped in her lap. “Take them home with you, review them carefully, and let me know when you’ve made your decision.”

Adora hesitated. “How long can I take?”

“As long as you need,” Shadow Weaver replied. “Once you have decided, we’ll make an appointment for you to meet your matched surrogate. Then, we’ll go from there.”

“Thank you. Really.”

“Of course,” Shadow Weaver said, waving her hand dismissively. “Before you leave, though, let us review our engagement letter. Then we’ll take payment. Twenty-five percent down now, fifty percent after the pregnancy is confirmed, and the final twenty-five percent the week after your child is born.”

“My child,” Adora repeated softly, more to herself than to Shadow Weaver, as she hugged the binders to her chest.

Shadow Weaver smiled in return, though. “Indeed. Will you be paying by check or by charge?”

  
  


Adora spent most of the next few weeks poring over her binders, marking contenders with flags, writing notes on post-its, flipping through page after page of unidentified person after person. Glimmer and Bow helped, meaning that they were at Adora’s place almost nightly, or sitting with her in the firm’s conference room during breaks.

The sperm-donor binder, despite being much larger, was worked through really quite quickly. To echo Glimmer’s own, less-than-proper words, it should have come as less of a surprise to them the kind of men who would be willing to ejaculate into a cup for “charity.” As a result, many of the possibilities were rapidly eliminated. They were fortunate enough to find the donor who would ultimately become Adora’s final choice only a few days into their long-haul study session.

“Blonde hair, blue eyes,” Bow read as Adora wolfed down the sushi she’d ordered in between client meetings. “Five foot eleven, two hundred pounds, athletic slash muscular body type.”

Glimmer whistled from where she’d propped her feet up on the glass conference-room table. “Hello, beefcake.”

Bow rolled his eyes and continued, “Also achieved a graduate-level degree in legal studies.”

Mouth full of sashimi, Adora spluttered, “He’s a lawyer, too?”

Bow shrugged. “It doesn’t say. I guess he could’ve gotten a masters in legal library sciences, or something. But who knows, maybe.”

“Anything under medical history?” she asked.

“Personal history of mild to moderate insomnia,” Bow replied. “No known family history of cancer, diabetes, or anything like that. For all intents and purposes—” Bow grinned cheekily at Adora. “—a prime physical specimen.”

“Pfft,” Glimmer scoffed, popping a California roll into her mouth. “He sounds like the male Adora.”

“I’m not five-eleven. Or two hundred pounds,” Adora said simply.

“But you are God’s gift to female athleticism,” Glimmer replied. “So.”

“And his interests are as follows, and I quote,” Bow announced. “Hanging with friends, going to the gym, and riding his horse.”

Miniscule fragments of rice spewed from Glimmer’s pursed lips as she tried to laugh without choking.

“Excuse me,” Adora said, picking at her teeth with her fingernail. “I’m not as two-dimensional as that.”

Bow tipped his head to the side, his expression perhaps a little patronizing. “But tell me that, if you only had three spaces to fill with your interests, that wouldn’t be your top three.”

“And in that exact order,” Glimmer added after swallowing and taking a gulp of breath.

Adora pouted. “Shut up.”

The surrogate binder took much, much longer. Adora blamed it on the fact that each candidate came with her own picture. More than once, Glimmer or Bow had to talk Adora out of selecting a potential birth mother based on how kind her eyes were, or how genuine her smile was.

“Look at her information, Adora,” Glimmer snapped at her one night, prodding her finger at the page from her place in the corner of Adora’s sectional. Adora stood behind her, binder balanced on the couch’s spine. “Daily smoker. With a family history of cardiovascular disease. I know that they can’t estimate a person’s intelligence on these things but, if they could, I don’t think this girl would top the charts.”

“Look at her body language, though,” Adora said, pointing to the picture of the girl with dyed red hair, hands on her hips as she winked at the camera. “She seems fun and bubbly, doesn’t she? I wouldn’t mind my kid having a personality like that.”

Glimmer groaned. “If you want fun and bubbly, just ask Perfuma to do it! That way, you could also guarantee that your kids will never have the risk of a blocked artery in their life.”

At the crest of week two, Adora laid in her bed alone with the binder on her lap, flipping through it lazily as she tried to muster the will to sleep. Glimmer and Bow had gone back to their own place after work and were probably long unconscious. Adora yawned, nixed the candidate on the current page for being far too petite to reasonably ask her to carry the child of the sperm donor (to whom Glimmer had begun referring affectionately as “He Man”), and turned the page with the promise that this would be the last one before it was officially time for bed.

But suddenly, Adora was wide awake.

The woman in the picture was beautiful in a strange, otherworldly kind of way. Adora couldn’t pin exactly why at first as she examined the candidate’s features. She was tan, her face was freckled—which was, in Adora’s humble opinion, really, really cute. Her hair was dark and sort of wild, like she hadn’t bothered brushing it before the picture was taken. A strand crossed her forehead and over one of her eyes, and that’s when Adora figured it out. The woman had two different-colored eyes; one bright blue, the other a light brown that could’ve looked gold in the sun. Adora skimmed the candidate’s medical history, which confirmed _complete heterochromia iridum (non-pathological)_. It also stated that she was allergic to dust mites. Adora fought a chuckle. What a lame allergy.

 _Five foot three. One hundred and twenty pounds. Athletic/lean build._ Under education level: _Attended some college, incomplete bachelor’s degree in communications._ Her interests: _Dancing. Kickboxing. Her cat._

Adora did actually chuckle at that. The woman in the picture, wearing a black, sleeveless crop top with high-waisted, ripped jeans and perfectly winged eyeliner—Adora could definitely believe her first two interests easily enough. But by the way she stood with her arms crossed, quite nearly scowling at the camera—it wasn’t so much that she _had_ a cat that Adora couldn’t believe, but that she wasn’t too proud to name it as one of her interests.

She stared at the picture again, and continued doing so until she fell asleep, binder in her lap, lamp still on.

At work the next morning, Adora dumped the binder onto Glimmer’s desk, page open. “I found her. This is the one.”

Glimmer hummed noncommittally as she leaned over the book. With her mouth fixed in a flat line, she muttered, “She looks so grumpy.”

Bow, who was standing next to her chair separating their take-home files, glanced over Glimmer’s shoulder. “She’s pretty, though. Her eyes are super cool.”

“She doesn’t look like you, though,” Glimmer said, looking up at Adora. “Don’t you want your child to look like you? He Man _sounds_ like you, but—”

“It doesn’t matter to me what my kid looks like,” Adora said, pulling the binder back to look at the woman’s picture once more. “If they’re lucky enough to look like _her_ , though. . .”

As Adora trailed off, Bow and Glimmer exchanged worried glances.

“Uh, Adora,” Bow said tentatively. “You’re not. . . Uh. You don’t think that you’re. . .”

Adora looked up sharply. “That I’m what?”

“Thinking with your lady parts?” Glimmer offered.

Bow transferred all of his attention to the ceiling tiles as Adora gaped at them, blushing. “I am not!” she said, holding the binder to her chest protectively. “I don’t like her because she’s _hot_. She’s got no significant medical history, more education than most of the other candidates, an interesting personality—”

“But you agree?”

“Agree with what?” Adora groaned in exasperation.

Glimmer smiled evilly. “You do think she’s hot.”

  
  


Two Fridays later, Adora left work after lunch to travel back to the agency. Glimmer and Bow had offered to join her again, but Adora had declined. She felt, at least this time, she should go alone.

Adora was brought into Shadow Weaver’s office, where she handed the binders back with a gush of gratitude.

“I’m glad you were able to make your selection,” Shadow Weaver said, replacing the binders onto her bookshelf. “The donor’s specimen will be retrieved from the lab right before the fertilization procedure. The surrogate—” Shadow Weaver checked the analog clock on the wall above the door and frowned. “She’s late. But that is not out of the ordinary for her. She’ll be here soon.”

“Have you worked with her before?” Adora asked. Her heel bounced anxiously against Shadow Weaver’s carpet. “I mean, has she done this before?”

“No,” Shadow Weaver said. And that was all she said.

“Okay,” Adora said. Her calf was getting tired from the bouncing, but she couldn’t stop it if she tried. “Does she know what’s happening today? You know, that she’s been selected?”

“Yes,” Shadow Weaver replied. “I sent her some background information about you when I received your call last week. She should have had the opportunity to review it by now. If she didn’t find you favorable for any reason, she would have informed me of such. Otherwise, today is merely a formality so that you two can meet.”

Adora nodded, perhaps a bit more fervently than she would have normally. Her nerves were just absolutely shot. “I’m excited to meet her.”

“Don’t be,” said a voice from the door. It was kind of gravelly, exactly the kind of voice Adora would have expected if she had thought about it at all. Just as Adora began to twist in her chair, the other woman found hers—right next to Adora, within an arm’s length—and sat. “Sorry. My boss held me back late.”

Her hair was tied back, her ponytail sprouting thick sprigs every which direction. She wore black jeans with frayed cuffs and a red, off-the shoulder top tucked into them. As it had been in her picture, her eyeliner was immaculate. She leaned far back in her seat, arms crossed in front of her.

With barely a tip of her chin in Adora’s direction, the woman said, “I’m Catra.”

“Catra,” Adora repeated, rolling the name around in her mouth like a hard candy. She held out her hand. “Adora.”

The woman—Catra—smirked. “I figured,” she said, as she eyed Adora’s hand suspiciously. She did take it, though, and Adora noticed her long, sharp fingernails, painted with black polish. “Hey, Adora.”

“Hi,” Adora said, joy bubbling up inside of her despite her best efforts to keep it cool.

Glimmer was right. Catra was hot.

Not that that had anything to do with her decision-making process.

But still.

Shadow Weaver stood. “I need to fetch some paperwork. That will give you two the opportunity to talk in private.” Once she was out of the room, Catra sat up a little straighter.

“So,” Catra said, surveying Adora up and down. “What’s with the suit?”

Adora looked down at herself. “Oh, sorry. I just got off of work and came straight here without changing. I didn’t mean to overdress or anything.”

Catra shrugged. “Nah, it looks good.”

Heat crept across Adora’s face. “Thank you.”

“You’re a lawyer right? You did that thing against that bullshit adoption agency, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“That’s cool.”

The heat kept moving, radiating to Adora’s ears and down her neck. “Thanks. I hoped it would be.”

Catra chuckled. “So, what, that inspired you to get on with the baby-making thing?”

“No,” Adora said, now feeling a little awkward with how much she was blushing. She prayed Catra didn’t notice (though she suspected by the twist of Catra’s mouth that that prayer might be fruitless). “It’s been a little while coming. Now that that case is done, though, the timing seemed right.”

“Right. No time like the present.”

“What about you? I mean, this is such a. . . a major _thing_ to do for someone you don’t know. What made you decide to become a surrogate?”

At that, though, Catra’s smile dropped. She crossed her arms in front of herself again. “Does it matter?”

Adora blinked. “I guess not. I was just curious.” With a cringe, she added, “Did that get too personal? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Catra rolled her eyes a little. “You didn’t offend me. You’re fine.”

“Okay. Um.” Adora glanced around the room, as if a change of topic would materialize from somewhere. Her eyes landed on the surrogate-candidate binder. “So you have a cat?”

It was Catra’s turn to blink in surprise. “Uh, yeah.”

“What’s their name?”

“Melog.”

Adora snorted.

Catra narrowed her eyes. “And what’s so funny about that?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Adora said around her smile. “It’s just not a name I expected to hear.”

Catra’s face broke into a smirk again. “And what kind of name were you expecting?”

“I don’t know, a cat name.”

“And what qualifies as a cat name?”

“I don’t know! Like, Salem. Or Toby. Something like that.”

“She came with the name, okay. She wouldn’t answer to anything else.”

“Mhm,” Adora hummed. “Sure.”

“You have a horse, don’t you?” Catra asked. “I read that in your profile.”

“I do, yeah.”

“And their name?”

“Swift Wind.” Catra snorted that time, her laugh getting pitchy at its apex. Someone might have found it annoying. Adora would do anything to hear it again. “Oh, so now you’re getting all judgey about pet names?”

“When you say my cat’s name is dumb and then tell me you named your horse _Swift Wind_ , like he’s some fairytale steed? Yeah, I’m gonna get a little judgey.”

Shadow Weaver reentered the room just then, and the change in Catra’s demeanor was palpable. Her expression fell straight back into looking bored, whereas she’d just been engaged and smiling. Shadow Weaver didn’t make any comment on it, however; she probably didn’t even notice. She just sat in her chair and pushed a stack of paper in front of Catra.

“This is the surrogacy contract. In essence, it states that you, Catra, will provide surrogacy services to Adora. Although by law you cannot be offered or accept direct compensation in exchange for signing a consent to relinquish any and all parental rights to the child once they are born, this contract states that you are entitled to reasonable pre-birth expenses.”

 _There it is_ , Adora thought. Why Catra sidestepped her question earlier. She would get money out of the whole deal. Adora would be paying the agency handsomely for their services, so she wondered how much of it Catra would receive. Probably most of it, judging by the state of the office. She’d deserve it, though, for what she was doing.

Ultimately, Adora decided that Catra was right. It didn’t matter to Adora _why_ she was doing this. It just mattered that she was.

“There’s more to it than that, of course, but I am not an attorney and, therefore, cannot give you advice on this contract. If you sign it, you recognize that you had the opportunity to seek legal counsel, either did so or elected not to, and chose to proceed anyway.”

“I read it,” Catra said, leaning across Shadow Weaver’s desk to pluck a pen from a coffee mug. “I understand.”

“My friend Bow is an adoption attorney,” Adora interjected. Both Catra and Shadow Weaver looked at her with blank expressions. “I just mean. . . If there’s any doubt in your mind and you want to talk it over with someone. If you’re not comfortable with talking to someone I’m close with, I could get you a referral for—for someone else. I’d be happy to cover the consultation fee.”

Catra’s eyes softened an infinitesimal amount. “No, I don’t need that.” She flipped to the back page of the contract and signed her name in a tight, sharp script. She put the pen down and said, “Done. So when do I go get knocked up?”

Shadow Weaver visibly suppressed a sigh as she took the paperwork back and slid it into what Adora recognized as her file. “Your test results indicated that you would be ovulating next Thursday.”

“Bitchin’,” Catra said, getting to her feet and cracking her knuckles. “That’s my day off. Super looking forward to it.” She gave a little pseudo salute and said, “Ladies.”

Before Catra could turn and disappear, however, Adora said, “Wait! Can I—” She looked between Shadow Weaver and Catra, unsure from whom she needed permission. “Can I be there?”

Catra grimaced. Shadow Weaver cut in before she could say anything, though. “The fertilization procedure is not worth the trip. You’d be required to stay in the waiting room, and it would be completed very quickly.”

Adora deflated, but put on a brave face (more for herself than anyone else). “Okay, I understand.”

“You will be able to attend all the prenatal visits, however,” Shadow Weaver added.

Catra looked like she kind of wanted to grimace again. Instead, she nodded. “Sure. That’s fine.”

“Excellent,” Shadow Weaver said. “You may go.”

Catra nodded again, shot Adora a weird kind of smile, and had gone in the blink of an eye.

Adora wanted to yell after her. And, after a second, she did, Shadow Weaver and her disapproving frown be damned. “ _Thank you!_ ”

A few seconds later, sounding as if she was already walking out the front door, Catra’s response came. “ _Whatever!_ ”

Adora beamed.

Of course, as soon as she was alone in her car, she wept, forehead pressed against her steering wheel, her fists curled so tightly in her lap that her knuckles had gone white. After composing herself a bit, she typed into her phone’s calendar for the following Thursday: _Catra’s appointment_. She didn’t care if she wouldn’t be there in person. She was taking that day off anyway. But tonight, she would meet Bow and Glimmer for drinks.

And this time, they’d lift their drinks to Catra.


	2. First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adora anxiously awaits the results of Catra's procedure.

By the time Thursday was upon her, Adora was a nervous wreck. That much was clear when Glimmer and Bow both showed up, unannounced, to Adora’s house during their lunch hour.

“Guys, hi!” Adora yelled over the sound of her vacuum, which she pushed back and forth even as she stood in the doorway, a feather duster wedged under her other arm. “I didn’t expect you to be here, sorry the place is a bit chaotic right now. . .”

“I’ll say,” Bow mumbled, sidestepping Adora and taking in the scene. “Wow. Adora? Where are all your blinds?”

“Outside!” Adora replied, closing the door behind Glimmer and wheeling the vacuum around them.

“Uh. . . Why?”

“They’re drying.”

“Did you—did you hose them off, or something?”

“Yeah! Oh, my god, you guys, you would not believe how disgusting they were. I tried just dusting them, but they were shedding gunk all over the tile.”

“Hence the vacuum,” Glimmer said, pointing at it.

“Oh, yeah,” Adora said with a grin, kicking the vacuum’s switch off with her socked toe. “And halfway through I lost my duster, and I just figured, hey, why not, you know? I’ve lived here for years and realized I’ve never washed them before.”

“Are you supposed to?” Bow muttered.

“The duster that’s under your arm?” Glimmer asked, moving her finger to point at Adora instead.

Adora looked down. “My duster!”

“How did you take down your blinds without lifting your arm?” Bow asked.

“Well, I was being really careful. I thought it was my phone.”

“And where’s your phone, then?”

Adora blinked, then shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea.”

“Okay,” Glimmer said, clapping her hands and then leaning forward to take Adora’s. “Let’s take a break!” Glimmer led Adora, with Bow following, to the living room. There, Glimmer stopped in her tracks. “Adora, did your closet throw up on your couch?”

Adora said, “I’m just organizing! Putting aside stuff I haven’t worn in a while to donate. You get it.”

With his thumb and forefinger, Bow plucked a pair of leggings, ripped to hell and back, from where they draped over the closest cushion. “Is this the trash pile?”

“No, that’s keeps.”

Gingerly, Glimmer extracted the duster from Adora’s armpit and placed it on the back of the couch. In the same movement, she pried Adora’s hand from the vacuum cleaner, which she was still dragging behind her. “Let’s go outside and get some fresh air, okay? Bow, will you get Adora something to drink?”

“On it,” Bow confirmed, and wordlessly Adora allowed Glimmer to lead her outside and to push her into a patio chair.

Glimmer sat in the one next to her before putting her palm on Adora’s knee. “So, you’re clearly having an episode right now.”

Adora gasped and moved her leg away so that Glimmer’s hand fell between them. “I am not! I’m being productive!”

“Clinically,” Glimmer said with a grimace. She nodded at the several sets of blinds that were laid across the flagstone. “That is not productive, Adora. That is insane.”

The back door slid open and Bow walked through with a glass of lemonade and Adora’s phone. “Here,” he said, handing both off.

Adora immediately put her phone face down on the patio table, then took a sip of her drink. Her face puckered instantly. “Ugh, what’d you put in the lemonade?”

Bow smiled cheekily. “Gin.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” Adora said, and she downed half the glass in one.

“I take it you haven’t heard anything about your baby mama’s appointment yet?” Glimmer offered.

Adora winced. “I. . . haven’t.”

Glimmer narrowed her eyes. “Why do you say it like that?”

“Because. . . I haven’t checked?”

Glimmer facepalmed. “Adora, this is just the first appointment! Why are you freaking out so much?”

“Because!” Adora whined. “Because what if I look, and there’s no updates, and then I keep looking, and keep looking, and—and what if she backed out?”

Glimmer groaned, but pressed Adora’s hands between hers. “She is not gonna back out, all right?”

“And if she does,” Bow added, sitting in a chair on Adora’s other side and grabbing her shoulder, “then you find another birth mom. There were plenty of choices in that binder!”

“None as hot as her,” Glimmer said snidely but, at Bow’s withering glare, she quickly corrected. “But Bow’s right! She’s not going to back out, but if she does, you’re still golden. Right?”

“Right,” Adora echoed much less forcefully.

After a long moment, Bow asked, “Do you want me to check for you? It’s half past noon, so. . .”

Adora hesitated, then said, “Okay. But! If there’s nothing, would you maybe, like, take my phone to work with you? That way I won’t be tempted to check it again until you’re off tonight.”

“No need,” Bow said, Adora’s phone already in his hand. He held it out to her. “You got an email from the agency over two hours ago.”

“ _What?_ ” Adora hollered as she lunged for the phone. She handled it so frantically that it took her six tries to enter her password correctly. But then there it was:

_Ms. Stevenson. The fertilization procedure has been completed. The surrogate will take a home pregnancy test in two weeks. If fertilization was successful, we will coordinate with you to attend a doctor’s appointment with the surrogate to confirm. If it was not, we will address alternative methods then. Sincerely, Shadow Weaver._

Adora screamed and held her phone to her face.

“Jesus, Adora!” Glimmer yelled, prying Adora’s clenched fists apart. “You’re gonna get your HOA called on you!”

Tears streamed steadily down Adora’s cheeks as she laughed. “Sorry! I’m sorry. But it’s done, she did it! Oh, my god.” Adora bent at the waist to rest her head against her knees, her hands still clinging to Glimmer’s like they were a lifeline. “Oh, _man_. _Whew!_ ”

“No turning back now, then,” Bow declared, and patted Adora’s back.

“At least not without the risk of getting super sued,” Glimmer added.

Adora leaned back in her chair and took a couple of deep, measured breaths. “I’m so relieved.” She looked to the side, though, and cringed. “Oh, god, I’m not looking forward to putting those back up.”

“And on that note,” Bow said, getting to his feet, “we should be getting back. We just hadn’t heard from you all morning and kind of figured that exactly what was happening was, in fact, happening.”

“So, same time two weeks from now?” Glimmer asked as she followed Bow’s lead.

Adora cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

Glimmer’s back was already turned as she looped arms with Bow and stepped through the sliding door. “Because if this is you now,” she called over her shoulder, “imagine when she takes the test!”

  
  


Adora was initially confident that Glimmer’s comment would prove wrong. What Adora has been most worried about, after all, was convincing some stranger to agree to carry a child that was not theirs and actually go through with it to the point of no return. And Adora was relieved, at least for a while as she rode Thursday’s high through the next week.

It was the morning of the following Thursday that she woke up feeling like somebody was sitting on her chest. That anxiety crawled, slowly, reaching new parts of Adora’s body every day after that. Her shoulders on Friday, her stomach on Saturday, and so on. By the second Thursday—two weeks after receiving Shadow Weaver’s email—Adora was vibrating to the tips of her fingers.

“You sure you don’t want to take today off, too?” Bow asked with a sympathetic frown, kicked back in the chair across Adora’s desk. “You seem a little. . . touchy.”

“I’m not touchy,” Adora snapped, mopping up her coffee with tissues after she tried to pick up her mug and its contents came spilling out like they were running from something. She sighed, and then said, “Sorry. I know, you’re right. But I can’t take more time off than is absolutely necessary. I missed half that Friday, and then two weeks ago, and I’ll have to take off some more time pretty frequently with doctor's appointments, and then I’ll be taking a few months when. . .” She looked up and pouted. “Shadow Weaver hasn’t sent me anything yet.”

Bow checked his watch. “It’s not even ten, Adora. Shadow Weaver probably doesn’t know yet. I’m sure she’ll be emailing you soon.”

Bow had to leave for a potential-client consult only a few minutes after that. Glimmer was in trial all morning, and when she and Bow returned to Adora’s office at noon, bags of hot lunch in tow, Adora listened dutifully as Glimmer expounded on the stupidity of the common populace (which applied to not only the jury selected for her case, but also the prosecutor, the bailiff, and even her own client). So many of their conversations had been engulfed with baby talk for what seemed like so long at that point—and would continue to be, maybe forever?—that Adora thought it was the bare minimum she could do to fulfill her best-friend duties for the day.

But, still. It took herculean effort for her to focus on Glimmer’s story, or the heated phone call from an opposing counsel, or the twenty-six-page brief that needed to be filed by Monday. When her focus did break and her fingers drifted to the email app on her phone, it did nothing to quell the anxiety that was rising up her throat like vomit. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Even at four o’clock that afternoon.

 _We’ll try again,_ Adora chanted in her head. _If Catra’s still in, I’m still in. We’ll try again. We’ll try again. We’ll try—_

Then her desk phone rang, quite nearly startling Adora out of her skin. With quivering hands, she pressed the speakerphone button. “Yes?” she asked.

“ _Adora!_ ” came the clear, singsong voice of the firm receptionist on the other end. “ _I hope you’re having an exhilarating afternoon! Big plans for the weekend, per chance?_ ”

“Sea Hawk,” Adora said flatly as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Did you need something?”

“ _Yes, indeed!_ ” Sea Hawk confirmed. “ _You have a phone call! I do not believe she is a current client, but she insisted that she needed to speak to you, personally, at once! Are you otherwise occupied?_ ”

“I guess not,” Adora said, peering dolefully at her cellphone. Still no dice. “Did you get their name this time?”

“ _I did! The young lady’s name is Catra, although she would not tell me—_ ”

Adora clambered in her chair as she planted both feet on the ground, both hands on her desk. “Put her through.”

“ _Will do! But first, while I have you, I wanted to confirm that Mermista and I will be seeing you this Saturday for—_ ”

“Sea Hawk.”

“ _Never mind, we’ll talk after. Here she is!_ ”

The line clicked right as Adora grabbed the phone from its cradle and held it tight against her ear. “Catra?”

A low chuckle, then, “ _Hey, Adora._ ”

“Hey.” Adora leaned on her elbows, keeping one hand pressed against the phone while the other carded nervously through her ponytail. “I—I didn’t expect to hear from you. Shadow Weaver said that she’d be emailing me when—well, you know.”

If an eye roll had a sound, it would be the breath that Catra released. “ _Yeah, she can be like that._ ”

“Like what?”

“ _Controlling._ ” After a brief pause, Catra continued, “ _Is it okay that I called you? Or would you rather—_ ”

“No!” Adora said in a rush. “I mean, yes! That’s fine, that’s more than fine. I’m—I’m happy to hear from you. Did you get this number from Shadow Weaver? She has my cell, too, if you prefer that. Or I can give it to you! You can text me, or—”

“ _No, I—Actually, I looked it up. Shadow Weaver didn’t give me anything._ ”

Adora grinned like a fool. “You looked me up? Like, on the internet?”

“ _Don’t get a big head about it or anything,_ ” Catra said, not without some snark. “ _I didn’t have to try that hard. Your firm was, like, the fourth result. But, uh. I wanted to tell you—I wanted you to hear it from me._ ”

Heart sinking, Adora gripped the phone tighter. “Yeah?”

“ _I took the test._ ”

“Okay. And?”

“ _And. . ._ ” Catra dragged the word out, wringing Adora’s nerves along with it. “ _It was positive._ ”

The hand that was in Adora’s hair moved to push its heel against her forehead. “Are you serious?” Adora whispered—the loudest she could go around the huge lump that had spontaneously materialized in her throat.

“ _Yeah,_ ” Catra said, her own smile evident in her tone. “ _Congratulations._ ”

Adora slumped in her chair, rocking from side to side by the balls of her feet. She gazed unseeingly around the room and tried to blink the tears from her eyes. “Oh, my god. Oh, my _god._ ” She pulled the phone far enough away from her face that she hoped Catra wouldn’t hear her sniffle, then brought it back to say, “ _Thank you._ ”

“ _Whatever,_ ” Catra replied casually. “ _I guess I’ll see you at my doctor’s appointment in a few weeks, right?_ ”

“Yes! Yes, I would love that. Do you have the date and time yet?”

“ _No, the agency books it for me. But Shadow Weaver will send you everything. And, actually, can you, uh, do me a favor?_ ”

 _Anything,_ Adora wanted to say. Not wanting to sound overbearing, though, she settled on, “Yeah, what do you need?”

“ _Could you, maybe,_ not _tell Shadow Weaver that I called you?_ ”

“Oh,” Adora said. “Sure, of course. But, like. . . why?”

Catra sighed, her breath making a loud _whoosh_ in Adora’s ear. “ _All communications between intended parent and surrogate should be mediated through the agency,_ ” she said, pitching her voice deep and slow in a (rather good) impression of Shadow Weaver.

Adora snorted. “Okay, sure. It’ll be our secret.”

“ _You promise?_ ”

“I promise.” Adora shook her head. “I’m really glad I heard it from you, though. Thank you. For, like, everything.”

“ _Eh,_ ” Catra said with the verbal equivalent of a shrug. “ _I’m just gettin’ started. But. . . you’re welcome. I guess._ ”

Ten minutes later, after Adora took the time to dry her eyes, wipe away a stray bit of mascara, cry some more, and repeat the process over again, she figured that it was as good a time as any to go home. It was half past four, anyway; there was absolutely no use in trying to get an extra half-hour’s amount of work in, especially in her state.

Briefcase in hand, she opened the door of her office and was greeted by every single person with whom she worked.

“Uh,” Adora said, glancing around anxiously. “Hi?”

Glimmer, front and center of the crowd, smiled a weird smile. “Hey. So. . . How are you?”

“Fine.” Adora cocked her head to one shoulder. “How. . . are you?”

“Good, good,” Glimmer replied, waving her hands around aimlessly.

“How was your afternoon?” Bow asked from behind Glimmer.

“It was fine?”

“Oh, my god,” said a woman leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. “Out with it! Is she pregnant or not?”

“ _Mermista!_ ” Glimmer scolded.

Adora’s jaw dropped to her chest. “You told them!” she accused, pointing in Glimmer’s face. “It’s supposed to be a _secret!_ ”

“It wasn’t on purpose!” Glimmer wailed, dragging her hands down her cheeks. “I’m sorry! I just told my dad! It just kinda slipped out. . .”

“Glimmer forgot that Micah is the worst secret-keeper on the planet,” Bow stated.

Glimmer looked like she wanted to respond, but Micah himself interrupted by placing his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “He’s right, Glimmer. I am.” Looking to Adora, he added, “But, to my defense, I only told my sister. Oh, and Frosta.”

Frosta, who stood to Glimmer’s left, shrugged. “And I told Perfuma and Mermista. I didn’t know it was a secret.”

Micah cringed. “ _That_ part was my fault.”

“I _told_ Frosta,” said the woman nervously wringing her long, blonde curls in her hand, “that if she didn’t hear it from you personally that she probably shouldn’t spread something so _private!_ ”

“And _I_ told Perfuma,” Frosta replied with a sneer, “that there are no secrets between family. Right, Adora?”

“Even amongst family, Frosta,” Perfuma continued to chide, “things like these are usually kept private for a while. You wouldn’t understand—”

“I’m twenty-three years old! Not ten!”

“You’re twenty-two and a half, and you’re obviously still not old enough to stop rounding up!”

As Frosta and Perfuma continued to bicker between themselves, one woman at the back of the pack hooked her thumb at herself and her partner. “Glimmer’s Aunt Casta told Spinny and me at dinner last weekend.”

Spinnerella leaned into the other woman’s shoulder. “But Netossa and I didn’t tell anyone else. We understood that you perhaps wanted to wait.”

Adora, completely at a loss, just gaped at everyone. After a minute, she mustered the question, “And Sea Hawk?”

“I assure you, Adora, I had no idea!” Sea Hawk declared valiantly.

Mermista shook her head. “I didn’t tell him. Figured that was the absolute fastest way to blow our cover.”

“But Mermista and I were next to Sea Hawk when he got the call,” Perfuma explained. “And I fetched Frosta, who fetched Micah, who fetched everyone else—”

Bow threw out weird little jazz hands. “And here we are!”

Adora nodded dumbly. “Yep. Here is. . . everyone.”

There was a long pause as everyone looked at Adora expectantly.

“So?” Glimmer asked quietly. “What did she say?”

Adora scanned the faces in front of her. She considered, briefly, that Perfuma was right that it _hadn’t_ been her plan to tell anyone outside of Glimmer and Bow until the pregnancy was a few months along. But seeing each of them—even Mermista, who was typically pretty stony—stare back at her with individual mixes of anticipation and hope and excitement?

Frosta was right. There were no secrets between family.

Slowly, Adora allowed her smile to radiate across her face. “Yeah. She’s pregnant.”

Noise erupted from the group like a bomb had gone off. Adora was tackled frontways, sideways, and even backways (as Frosta maneuvered herself to throw her arms around Adora’s neck in a strangling hug). Those who held back from the embrace pulled poppers out of their pockets and set them off, glitter and thin streamers falling onto everybody’s heads like snow. Shouts of congratulations and encouragement rendered Adora temporarily deaf.

When she finally could hear separate phrases, Sea Hawk’s reached her first. “Anything you want of Pearl’s is yours, my dear friend! She’s growing like seaweed, and we have trunks _full_ of newborn accoutrement that she never even wore before she got too big!”

“You can babysit anytime, too,” Mermista added a bit too casually. “You know, for practice.”

Micah was straight-up weeping. “Take as much time off as you need, Adora. Appointments, shopping trips, vacation days, they’re all yours.”

“I can get you all kinds of prenatal supplements,” Perfuma offered. “Cod liver oil, magnesium, folate—you name it, I can get it from my co-op! My gift to you and your wonderful, selfless earth mother.”

“ _Earth_ mother?” Glimmer repeated with a laugh.

Before she could dive in on mocking Perfuma (as was, unfortunately, her nature), Bow cut in. His cheek was pressed to Adora’s, and she could feel his hot tears on her skin. “We love you, Adora.”

“I love you guys, too,” she replied, squeezing him around his shoulders and Glimmer around her wrist. When the group hug began to slacken, she held him at arm’s length. “What were you guys gonna do if the test was negative, though?”

“Covertly collect the poppers, save them for next time, and take you out for drinks.”

“Can we still do that last part?”

Bow beamed at her. “Of course.”

“Come on, _mom_ ,” Glimmer said, slinging her arm around Adora’s waist. “Let’s go drink enough for you and your _earth mother_. We all know she certainly can’t, now.”

 _Mom._ The word echoed in Adora’s mind. _Mom. Mom. Mom._

Wherever Catra was at that moment, Adora hoped that she would be celebrating, too. Or relaxing, or whatever made her happiest. To Adora, Catra deserved it most of all.

  
  


Lunchtime the following Monday found Adora in the agency waiting room, leaned against the front desk on her elbows while she finished filling out a check. Lost in thought contemplating exactly how many zeros were supposed to follow the first number (she suspected it was four, or was that the final payment?), she did not notice Shadow Weaver at her side until the woman spoke.

“Adora,” Shadow Weaver said, and Adora barely avoided dragging her pen across the check in surprise. “It is a pleasure to see you.”

“Hey!” Adora greeted, laying her things aside to shake Shadow Weaver’s hand, maybe a tad too forcefully. “How are you? I’m just here dropping off the check.”

“I see that. It’s supposed to have another zero, by the way.”

“Of course,” Adora said, pulling the check back towards her to add a fifth zero. Once she’d signed her name with a flourish, she ripped the check out of its book and held it uncertainly towards Shadow Weaver. “I was waiting for your receptionist, but should I just—?”

“I’ll accept it, thank you.” Shadow Weaver plucked it from Adora’s hands and stowed it between files in her arms. “And congratulations to you. Did you receive my email this morning about your surrogate’s appointment? It’s four weeks from today at nine in the morning.”

“I did!” Adora confirmed as she replaced her checkbook into her briefcase. “I was going to respond this afternoon after I moved some stuff around that day. But, yes, I’ll be there! Actually, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Certainly,” Shadow Weaver replied, her tone indulgent. “Ask away, dear.”

“Is there any chance I could get Catra’s contact info?” Adora asked hopefully. “It feels so weird to not, like, _be there_ except for doctors appointments. I’d love to get updates, and maybe send her some gifts that my friends are collecting for her. My friend Perfuma brought me this _massive_ bottle—it’s more like a silo, really—of these funny, organic prenatal vitamins that she—”

“I’m sorry, Adora,” Shadow Weaver interrupted. “But I cannot give you Catra’s information. It’s not exactly appropriate.”

Adora deflated. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did Catra—” She stopped herself, trying to be careful not to out Catra about her call last week. “Would that make Catra uncomfortable, I mean? I don’t want to—”

Shadow Weaver interjected again. “It’s agency policy, I’m afraid. The relationship between intended parent and surrogate is delicate, fragile. With too much unadulterated contact, the lines blur. It protects both parties for the agency to moderate communication between them. The surrogate mother is protected from undue invasion of privacy by the intended parent, and the intended parent is protected from the surrogate mother becoming more involved than is absolutely necessary.”

“More involved?” Adora said with a tilt of her head. “Catra’s pregnant with my kid. Doesn’t that mean that she’s already, you know, pretty involved?”

Shadow Weaver nodded. “Precisely. Can I explain something to you, Adora?”

“Uh,” Adora said.

Shadow Weaver took that as a _yes_ , apparently, and continued, “There is inherent, unavoidable risk with surrogacy situations like yours. Here, Catra is a true surrogate. That is, it is _her_ egg combined with your donor’s sperm that creates your child. The child is, unfortunately, not automatically yours by law, and you’ll have to complete a formal adoption to finalize your relationship, which requires Catra’s cooperation. In the event that Catra decides, at birth, that she does not wish to relinquish her parental rights, there is nothing you can do. You can file a lawsuit against her for whatever else—repayment of expenses, infliction of emotional distress, et cetera. You know more about civil remedies than I do, I’m certain. But, ultimately—” Shadow Weaver leaned forward, leveling Adora with a stern but not-unkind gaze. “—you will go home without the child to whom you looked forward for the better part of a year, and you will be forced to start the process all over again.”

A cold kind of fear dripped down Adora’s spine. “Are you saying Catra’s going to back out?”

“Not necessarily,” Shadow Weaver said with a flippant wave of her hand. “But this is why the agency has these measures in place. Surrogate mothers are given strict instructions about nutrition and healthcare from their doctor. They are to follow those instructions mindlessly. If they are granted gifts, attention, _input_ —these things would only serve to confuse them. They might, for example, be led to build a bond with the children they carry. If that bond becomes too strong. . .”

Adora, whose mouth had gone dry, swallowed noisily. After an extra second, she nodded her head. “I understand.”

“I am relieved to hear that.” Shadow Weaver, very gently, touched her fingers to Adora’s forearm. They were frigidly cold. “You deserve this child, Adora. You deserve to become a mother. Don’t overthink it, and don’t overcomplicate it.” She withdrew her hand and stepped away. “Congratulations, again. And enjoy the appointment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter so you get a quick turnaround (please don't get used to it (please))


	3. Second

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adora blatantly ignores Shadow Weaver's advice.

On a Monday in mid-November, at eight forty-two in the morning, Adora was pacing back and forth in front of a doctor’s office that she’d never been to before. The air was relatively cool, but in the arid, hot climate in which she lived Adora found that the world had a little trouble retaining a real chill until early December anyway. She’d definitely be shedding her blazer by noon, and even then, on what must’ve been her hundredth rotation down the pathway lined with decorative rocks and flowerbeds, she could already feel the heat building under her arms that might later necessitate a change of her blouse.

Adora couldn’t just go sit in her car, though. She’d tried that for the first twenty minutes after she arrived, and that had resulted in her chewing each of her fingernails down to their quicks. She feared what she would’ve started chewing if she hadn’t left her car to begin the marching portion of the day’s exercise routine, and didn’t feel it was worth the risk.

Luckily, she got a _ping_ from her phone to distract her and, still pacing, she opened the texting app to find a message from Bow.

_Morning! You on your way to the doctor now?_

Adora chuckled, and chose not to tell him that she had been on her way to the doctor’s an hour ago. Instead, she typed back: _Just got here!_

_Did you? So you haven’t been waiting there for the last hour?_

Sighing, Adora texted: _You looked up my location didn’t you._

_As soon as I got to work, yes._

_You set me up._

A text came in from Glimmer to the same chat: _Out of love, Adora. Out of love. Baby mama there yet?_

_Nope, not yet._

_Here’s your daily fun fact before she gets there,_ Bow texted. _Your baby is currently between a sweet pea and a blueberry in size!_

 _And here’s your daily weird fact,_ Glimmer added. _One in two thousand babies are born with a full set of teeth. Here’s hoping!_

 _Jesus, Glimmer,_ Bow responded immediately, and Adora snorted.

“Cute,” came a voice from behind her, and Adora whipped around to see Catra, hands shoved deep in her hoodie pockets and wearing a smirk.

“Hey!” Adora said and, before she could stop herself, pulled Catra into a crushing embrace.

“Oh,” Catra mumbled, one of her hands coming up to pat Adora’s side. “Hey, Adora.”

Adora jumped back at the contact and cringed. “Sorry, I—”

“It’s okay,” Catra said, but she moved her hand to press it gently against her chest.

“Did I hurt you?” Adora asked as she felt her own face drain of color.

“Nah, I’m just sore.”

“Oh,” Adora said. Then, realizing what Catra meant, her eyes widened. “Oh! Oh, my god, I’m so sorry!”

Catra’s smirk widened. “Shut up about it, okay? It’s fine. Let’s just go inside.”

Adora followed Catra’s lead, scooping her briefcase from the path as they walked to the clinic and rushing ahead to hold the door open for Catra. Catra looked a little surprised, but muttered a quick thanks and stepped inside.

They stood together at the reception desk while a friendly, middle-aged man checked them in. After he instructed them that the doctor would be with them shortly, Adora and Catra took seats next to each other, Adora relinquishing the armrest between them to Catra.

“So,” Adora asked. “How’re you feeling?”

Catra released a little mirthless chuckle. “Beyond the throbbing tits?”

“Y—yes,” Adora stuttered.

“I’m fine,” Catra answered.

“Not sick at all?”

“Not unless I smell food.”

Adora couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled up in her throat. “That’s not good. What’ve you been eating?”

Catra sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Saltines, water, and these prenatal horse pills Shadow Weaver gave me.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Eh,” Catra said. “This part’ll be over soon enough. Then I won’t be able to _stop_ eating, so. . .”

“Yeah, I hope so.”

They lapsed into—perhaps not an _easy_ silence, but a silence all the same. It was short-lived, though, as a door to the side opened and another man called out, “Catra Stevenson?”

“Close enough,” Catra grunted as she got to her feet again.

Adora, face hot for a reason completely beyond her realm of comprehension, trailed behind her.

“I am Doctor Hordak,” the man introduced himself, his face quite as stern as his tone. “Please follow me.”

As they walked up the short corridor, Catra and Adora exchanged wide-eyed glances. “Is it just me,” Catra whispered, “or is this the same guy as the front desk guy but, like. . . meaner?”

“It’s not just you,” Adora confirmed. “Do you think they’re, like, twins or something?”

Catra shrugged, and Hordak led them into a private room.

“My intern will be shadowing me today,” Hordak explained, gesturing towards the female person working at a machine on wheels, waving something that looked like a taser in the air. After a second, the intern gasped.

“Catra! Adora!”

“Entrapta?” Catra and Adora said together with varied levels of excitement (Catra’s low, Adora’s high).

“Hi!” Entrapta exclaimed, rushing to stand in front of them and stopping short of giving them a hug. “Oh, my god, I didn’t expect to see you here! I read the name _Catra_ , and then the name _Stevenson_ , and it didn’t occur to me what that meant. But I’m so glad to see you! Adora especially, because it’s been so long! Catra I just saw a couple of weeks ago, so—”

“Oh?” Adora asked, looking from Entrapta to Catra. “How do you guys know each other?”

“Uh, college,” Catra replied.

“Catra and I were roommates!” Entrapta squealed, her fists clenching in front of her face excitedly.

“What about you?” Catra asked Adora.

“High school,” Adora answered.

“Yeah!” Entrapta confirmed. “But how did _you_ guys meet? And how did I not know that you got _married?_ ”

Catra and Adora seemed to choke on their own spit at the same time.

“No, it’s not like that! It’s—well—it’s—” Adora stammered.

“My name’s wrong on the paperwork, we didn’t—Listen, Entrapta,” Catra said sternly, levelling Entrapta with a glare. “It’s complicated, okay? But I need you to _not_ talk about this with _anyone_. Especially Scorpia, get it?”

Entrapta saluted with the taser-looking thing. “Got it! Don’t worry, Catra, doctor-patient confidentiality! Consider my lips sealed.” Then she mimed zipping her mouth closed and throwing away the key.

Catra did not look particularly mollified, but she groaned and hopped onto the exam table anyway.

“Alrighty,” Entrapta said, putting away the unidentified device, grabbing a different one, and sliding a rolling chair to Catra’s side. “Hoodie off and shirt up, please!”

Adora looked sideways at Hordak, who watched stoically from the corner. “She’s going to be doing it, then?”

Hordak nodded without saying anything. It was Entrapta who answered, “Yep! Don’t worry, I’ve been interning with the Doctor for _months_ , this is all cake to me now.”

Adora looked back to Entrapta to respond, but at that moment caught sight of Catra pulling her hoodie up over her shoulders. Underneath, she wore a simple, strapped tank top, from which Catra’s chest was kind of spilling over. Not that Adora was looking on purpose. It was just really, really obvious. Adora nearly swallowed her tongue and diverted her gaze to the floor.

“I see you’re already experiencing swelling of your breasts, Catra,” Entrapta noted. “You certainly didn’t have those gams at the pool this summer. . .”

“Entrapta,” Catra scolded.

“I’m just saying! Rapid, but not out of the ordinary.”

After a minute, Catra said, “You can look now, weirdo, I’m decent.”

Adora looked up and saw that, yes, Catra had readjusted her top so that she was nice and covered again—at least above her ribs, because the bottom half of her shirt was rolled up, revealing her stomach. It was flat, toned, tan despite the fact that they were well into fall and quite nearly into winter. Mouth dry, Adora made the massive effort to meet Catra’s eyes, and nodded.

Catra narrowed her eyes at her, but yelped at an obscene, squelching sound as Entrapta squeezed a dollop of goo onto her stomach. “Jesus, that’s freezing!”

“Apologies,” Entrapta said, capping the bottle and putting it aside as she messed with some handheld device. “It's an ultrasound transmission gel, I need it in order to use the Doppler. Lay back, please.”

“What’s that do?” Adora asked, half actually interested, half seeking a distraction. “The doppelganger thingy?”

In one hand, Entrapta held a box and, in her other, a plastic wand that looked like a small flashlight, tethered together with a tightly spiraled cord. She placed the flashlight thing, flat side down, onto Catra’s abdomen. “A Doppler fetal monitor uses the Doppler effect—the change in frequency of a sound wave relative to an observer that is moving relative to the wave source—to detect the fetal heartbeat. At approximately six and a half weeks into gestation, it should be just strong enough to pick up.” With the flick of her thumb, the monitor began emitting a crackling white noise.

In a breath, Adora moved to stand at Catra’s other side. “Oh, my god. The baby’s heartbeat? We can hear that?”

Catra scoffed, and in a teasing voice said, “Duh, don’t you understand nerd speak?”

“Hush,” Adora said as she leaned forward, listening hard. After a minute, she asked, “Is it there? Is it. . . Is the baby okay?”

“Be patient,” Entrapta said, moving the wand across Catra’s stomach. “Depending on the position of the fetus, it might take a second to—Ah! There it is!”

Adora’s heart leapt into her throat at the same time that, just under the current of the white noise, her ears picked up on some kind of disturbance. When Entrapta slid the wand an inch to the left, it became clearer, a steady _whoosh, whoosh, whoosh_ detectable under the rest of the fuzz.

“Are you crying?” Catra asked.

“No,” Adora whispered, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and coming away—admittedly—a little moist. When Catra chuckled wryly, Adora just shushed her again.

“Sounds healthy!” Entrapta declared as she pulled away, the little fluttering whooshes cutting off instantaneously. Adora didn’t have time to be disappointed before Entrapta was spinning her wheeled stool around the patient table to the bigger machine with what looked like a TV on top of it. “Move, please,” she told Adora, and Adora complied, clumsily stepping around Entrapta to avoid getting her feet run over.

“Sit down, will you?” Catra asked, waving at another stool on the other side of the table. “You’re making me anxious.”

“Okay,” Adora said, and sat to Catra’s right. Meanwhile, Entrapta squirted more goop on Catra’s belly and pressed the taser thing to it, right on the spot where the fetal Doppler had picked up the baby’s heartbeat. On the little TV screen, an image appeared. It was mostly gray, with an oblong black center.

“That’s the amniotic sac,” Entrapta said, tapping at the black with her fingernail. Sliding her hand downward, she tapped at a smaller gray mass at the edge. “And that little peanut right there is the embryo.”

Adora was on her feet again in a second, leaning over Catra’s body to get her face as close to the screen as possible. “That’s the baby?” she asked.

“That’s the baby!” Entrapta said. “This is a great position, so I’ll take a few images here. Do you want the sonogram to take home with you?”

“Yes!” Adora gushed, beaming at Entrapta. “Yes, please.”

“Okey dokey,” Entrapta said. She pulled the wand off Catra’s stomach and began wiping it down. She handed Catra some disposable wipes as well. “Here, take these. When you’re ready we can start our internal exam, just give the Doctor and me a minute to go retrieve the tools. We’ll be right back!”

Even after they’d gone, Adora remained standing, staring at the still image left on the screen. It did look like a peanut. And, already, Adora loved them immeasurably.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Catra said, and Adora’s attention was brought back to her. It was at that moment that Adora realized, for balance, she had laid her hand on Catra’s bare shoulder. Now they were face to face, Adora’s hovering a foot above Catra’s.

“Oh, sorry!” Adora said, flinging herself backwards onto her stool with such force that she skidded a bit and had to grab the edge of the patient table to stop.

“I was just kidding, jeez,” Catra said as she wiped her stomach and pulled her shirt back down. “You’re kind of jumpy, has anyone told you that?”

“Constantly,” Adora replied, eyes drifting back to the ultrasound screen. “Are you seeing this, though? This is crazy!”

“That it is,” Catra agreed, but her eyes were carefully trained on the hem of her shirt, which she kept adjusting unnecessarily.

Shadow Weaver’s words from weeks earlier came back to Adora suddenly. _They might, for example, be led to build a bond with the children they carry. If that bond becomes too strong. . ._ It seemed like Catra was already doing her part to keep that from happening, between her devil-may-care remarks and her staunch refusal to look at the monitor. Adora should be trying to meet her end of the deal, too. Don’t be too invasive, don’t involve her too much. There was, after all, so much at stake.

Adora cast around for a subject change and landed on, “How’s Melog?”

Catra snorted and furrowed her brow. “Fine? She’s a cat. Nothing new in her life.” After an extra moment, she added, “I’m surprised you remembered her name.”

Adora cracked a smile. “We spent too long debating the strangeness of her name, it’d be hard for me _not_ to remember.”

Catra rolled her eyes. “I feel bad for this kid,” she said, gesturing downward at her abdomen. “With you, they’ll probably get stuck with some trash, hippy name like Moon Beam or Valley Horizon.”

“Oh, should I name them just, like, a random collection of sounds instead? What do you think of Weesnaw? Or would you prefer Darpflap?”

A laugh burst from Catra’s mouth, that grating, pitchy, annoying, wonderful laugh that Adora had carried with her since their first meeting. Maybe she shouldn’t be trading baby-name ideas with the woman who was supposed to disappear from her life as soon as her child was born, even in jest. But, then again, Adora really did love that laugh.

The door opened without warning, Entrapta pushing a cart topped with a metal tray through it. “Okay, ladies!” Entrapta said, pulling some material from one of the cart’s many drawers and shaking it out. It was a medical gown. “Catra, I’ll need you to put this on. Nothing underneath it with the opening at the front, all right? I’ve got a little towel if you want something to cover your lap with while we wait for the Doctor. But once he gets back here—” Entrapta reached to unlatch metal contraptions that had been tucked in the patient table. “—you put your feet in these stirrups and we get truckin’!”

Adora hesitated. The internal exam. It was. . . _super_ internal.

“I’ll give you some privacy then!” Adora announced, jumping to her feet and vaulting through the door by the time she finished her sentence.

  
  


The latter half of Catra’s appointment didn’t take too long, and when she walked out to meet Adora in the waiting room she brought a surprise with her.

“Check it,” she said, handing over a little square of paper. “The first of many horrible pictures the little parasite is going to have to sit through.”

Adora accepted the sonogram and could barely stand to look at it without her eyes threatening to spill over with hot, fresh tears. So she gave it one last glance, cast a little mental _Hello, I love you,_ to the peanut, and stowed it safely in her briefcase between files so that she could ensure it would stay flat. She was going to have it framed, for sure. She wanted to keep it nice.

“Thank you,” Adora said for what felt like the thousandth time. “Are you done here, or do we need to check out or anything?”

“No, we’re solid,” Catra answered. “Let them poke around inside me for a minute, gave them some blood, told Entrapta to fix the name issue, badabing, badaboom.”

“Yikes,” Adora said, and together they walked out into the gradually warming day. “What do you have going on after this?”

Catra shrugged. “Nothing, really. Probably gonna go home and set myself up on the couch for the rest of the day. Maybe, if I’m feeling _really_ crazy, I’ll try to keep some vegetable broth down. It’s gonna be wild.” Adora snort-laughed, and Catra looked pleased with it. Then Catra asked, “What about you, off to save the world?”

Adora glanced down at her watch. “Yeah, I guess. I took off the whole morning, though, so I don’t have anything until one thirty.”

“Is that an invitation?” Catra asked, and Adora looked up at her sharply. “Relax! I’m kidding.”

“Well, actually,” Adora said, even as her brain warred with itself over Shadow Weaver’s warning and Catra’s obnoxious, infectious laugh. “Would you maybe want to go get some coffee?”

Catra visibly hesitated, digging her hands into her back pockets as she shuffled foot to foot. “I mean, is that allowed?”

“No,” Adora said. “But I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Catra’s eyes narrowed a bit. “Why, though? You don’t want Shadow Weaver to get all panties-in-a-bunch about it, do you?”

Adora shrugged and said, “I don’t. But I kind of want to get to know you? I mean—” She gestured with her chin at Catra’s stomach. “—this is a big deal. It feels weird just cutting the agency a check and meeting you at the hospital in nine months to pick up a baby, doesn’t it?”

Crossing her arms, Catra replied, “It’s not that big of a deal to me, honestly. You don’t have to do anything just because you—I don’t know, feel bad.”

Adora shook her head. “It’s not because I feel bad. But if you don’t want to go, that’s okay. I could just—”

“No, I’ll go,” Catra said. “If you want to, I mean.”

“I want to,” Adora said, grinning in a way that she hoped Catra would find encouraging and not creepy.

With a cheeky grin of her own, Catra drawled, “Okay. Sure. But coffee? Do you want your baby to be super tweaked out at birth?”

“What? _Oh!_ ” Adora smacked her forehead with her palm. “Oh, _duh._ That’s not gonna work then.”

“Uh uh. And, just in case you’re not aware, that’s also a preemptive no on sushi, amusement-park rides, or drinks.”

Laughing, Adora said, “Honestly that sounds like a dream date.”

Catra blinked, then gave Adora an evil smile that could rival any of Glimmer’s. “Are you asking me on a date?” she asked, hand pressed gently to her clavicle in a faux-innocent gesture.

“Oh, my god, _no!_ ” Adora said hurriedly, waving her arms wildly in front of herself. “No, no, I didn’t mean—”

Catra frowned dramatically, her lip quivering. “Is it because I’m pregnant? Am I that unattractive already?”

“ _No,_ Catra, I—”

“I’m _fucking_ with you!” Catra yelled gleefully, shoving Adora’s shoulder lightly with one hand. “ _God_ , you’re too easy, it’s barely even _fun_.” Pulling her keys out of her pocket, she said, “Coffee’s fine, I’ll just get decaf. Where are we meeting?”

“Uh,” Adora said, out of breath from mental anguish alone. “Uh, do you know the Fright Zone Cafe? They’ve got good, uh, coffee.”

Catra soured instantly. “Not there.”

“What’s wrong with Fright Zone?” Adora asked. Trying to get back to some semblance of a normal conversation, she added, “Too hippy trash for you?”

“No,” Catra said. “I, um, work there.”

“Do you really?” Adora gasped. “Are you serious? I _love_ that place, I’m so jealous.”

“Yeah, well, don’t be. It’s lame.” Before Adora could interrupt, Catra said, “Let’s just meet at the Starbucks down the road, okay? You can ask me all the stupid questions you want about work there.”

“Okay, okay,” Adora said. “Same car, or. . . ?”

“And give you the chance to drive me to a second location and kill me? No way, I know all about stranger danger.”

“I wouldn’t kill you. At least not until after the baby’s born.”

“That’s very comforting, thanks,” Catra responded, doing that laugh that made Adora feel pride swell in her chest.

Pride, and maybe a little something else that felt like heartburn. But, like, nice heartburn.

  
  


Arriving separately but within thirty seconds of each other, Adora and Catra entered the shop, Adora holding the door open again and Catra reacting with enough surprise to indicate to Adora that she didn’t get the door held open for her very often.

“I would maim someone for an espresso shot right now,” Catra announced as they stepped up to the counter.

“That sucks for you,” Adora replied. “You’ll have to wait to maim someone for a little while, then.”

“Thirty-three weeks and three days,” Catra corrected, “if Entrapta can be trusted to estimate the due date correctly.”

“She probably can, I think. She’s a little nutty—”

“That’s one word for it.”

“But she’s a genius, so. . .” Adora turned to the barista and ordered a nitro cold brew for herself. To Catra, she asked, “What do you want?”

“Two of those,” Catra answered.

With an eye roll, Adora added to the barista, “And an iced peppermint tea, please.”

When Adora was done paying, Catra scowled at her. “I thought I made my order clear.”

“Iced tea is low in caffeine,” Adora explained. “And peppermint will help settle your stomach so maybe you can eat something more substantial than salted cardboard.”

“Jesus, fine, _mom_ ,” Catra hissed without much _oomph_ to it.

They collected their drinks at the end of the counter and found two seats at a table by the window. Once settled, Adora said, “So you and Entrapta were roommates.” With a snide smile, she asked, “How was that?”

“You knew her,” Catra replied. “I’m sure you can imagine. But our third—Scorpia—acted as, like, a volunteer mediator and eventually. . . I don’t know. She grew on me.”

“You mentioned Scorpia at the doctor’s,” Adora noted.

“I did.”

“And I take it she doesn’t know you're pregnant?”

“She does not.”

“You guys sound pretty close,” Adora said.

“And?”

“And. . . Nothing. It just seems funny not to tell her. I mean, eventually, she’s gonna notice, right?”

“When I get to looking like I swallowed a watermelon?” Catra scoffed. “Yeah, probably.”

Adora hummed noncommittally.

“What?” Catra asked.

“Nothing, it’s just funny, like I said.”

“Funny,” Catra said, sneering. “You don’t get it, okay? You don’t know her. And, honestly, you don’t really know me. So. . .” She took a small sip of her iced tea as she stared moodily out the window.

A voice sounding very much like Shadow Weaver’s huffed in Adora’s mind and said, _I told you so._ Adora leaned sideways to catch Catra’s eye and said, “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry or invade your privacy or anything. We don’t have to get into it if you don’t want to.”

Catra looked back at her skeptically. After a minute, though, she seemed to relax. “I just. . . Why do you care? I’m not asking that to be confrontational, I just don’t really get it.”

Adora cocked her head to the side. “I want to get to know you? Like I said earlier. This—” Adora motioned between them. “—is a part of that. But, again, if it gets too weird for you, we can stop. Or I can redirect. Whatever you’re most comfortable with.”

Clearly despite herself, Catra eased into a smile. “Trying to make sure your kid doesn’t have the genetic predisposition for psychopathy?”

Adora chuckled. “If that’s what you wanna tell yourself, sure. Let’s go with that.”

Later, when they were walking back through the parking lot (Adora in a bit of a rush, as she looked to her watch to find that she had an appointment scheduled in less than fifteen minutes), Adora skidded to a halt just outside of Catra’s car.

“Wait,” she said as she pulled out her phone. “Can I have your number?”

Catra—as was her nature, Adora had noticed—automatically became suspicious. “Why?”

“I want updates,” Adora said. “On how you feel and how the baby’s doing and kind of everything you feel comfortable sharing. And if you need anything that the agency can’t help with, I want to try to help you with it. I won’t bombard you with stuff, I promise. I’ll leave it up to you when and if you want to reach out. I just—” Adora shook her head. “Once a month prenatal visits aren’t enough for me. I wanna be more involved than that, as much as you’re comfortable with.”

“Shadow Weaver told me that’s inappropriate,” Catra replied. “She told me you’d asked her earlier, and that she’d said no.”

“Our secret then?” Adora asked. “Please?”

Catra sighed, smiled, and took Adora’s phone. “These are really piling up.”

Adora laughed. “I think we can handle it.” Catra handed her phone back, and Adora saw the new number, labeled simply as _Catra_ with a baby emoji. Adora snorted and said, “Thank you.”

“Whatever,” Catra said as she unlocked her car and slid into the driver's seat, adding, “Text me yours, okay?” before closing the door.

Adora threw her a thumbs up as Catra pulled out of her spot. When Catra was out of sight, Adora did a little dance on the spot.

All things considered (even the fact that she was ultimately, indeed, late to work), it had ended up being quite a good day.

  
  


In Adora’s group of friends, Thanksgiving was the crème de la crème of holidays. Every year since Adora’s first year of law school, she joined her found family at one of their houses and, together, they would go completely nuts from mid-morning to well past midnight preparing supper, gorging themselves, perhaps sneaking in a quick post-dinner-coma nap, and then hitting a second wind to play games and swap stories about anything and everything outside of work. Usually, most of the group would then sleepover (given that a good amount of the second-wind portion of the evening meant that alcohol would flow pretty freely). It was Adora’s favorite day of the entire year, winning out even over her own birthday.

This year, it came with the extra rush of anticipation that—assuming everything went according to plan—it would be the last Thanksgiving she would spend without the peanut in attendance.

It was just an added bonus that this year was Micah’s turn to host at his palatial home in the foothills.

In essence, everything was coming up Adora.

While Glimmer and Bow tackled seasoning a gargantuan turkey with their bare hands at the kitchen island, Adora stood with Glimmer’s aunt, Castaspella, across it as she cooed over a picture of the sonogram on Adora’s phone.

“They’re a gummy bear!” Casta singsonged. “Oh, I just adore them already. How far along are they now?”

“Eight weeks to the day,” Adora announced proudly. “This was at six weeks and four days, so I think they’re probably a little bigger now.”

“They’re raspberry-sized, in fact!” Bow declared, his arm elbow-deep in the turkey’s cavity.

Glimmer rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “He has an app on his phone that sends him alerts.”

“What, I’m excited!”

“Adora doesn’t even have that app yet!”

“I don’t need it,” Adora said, “when Bow texts me the info every day.”

“And don’t even pretend that you didn’t buy a book of weird pregnancy facts,” Bow commented, withdrawing his arm from its somewhat-obscene task to elbow Glimmer’s bicep.

“Which reminds me!” Glimmer said, moving to the sink to wash her hands of spices and unidentified gunk. “Did you know babies can taste everything the mother eats?”

“I feel bad for the baby, then,” Adora sighed, “considering Catra hasn’t been able to keep anything down that’s not bland.”

“Have you heard anything from her?” Bow asked and, here, Adora hesitated. It had been a week and a half since the first prenatal appointment and, in that time, Adora and Catra had exchanged approximately three texts.

The first was from Adora, which simply said, _Adora’s number!_ It went unreplied.

The second was from Catra, which came the morning after. _Your spawn let me eat boiled chicken last night,_ it read. _So I guess you might’ve had a point about the tea._

And the third was from Adora again, sent only five minutes after Catra’s. _I’m so glad to hear that! Maybe tomorrow you can season it lol! ;)_

But that was it; otherwise, it’d been radio silence. Adora had promised that she would let Catra be the one to reach out when and if she felt like it, and she was going to stick to that promise. Still, Adora wouldn’t be able to deny that she’d pulled up her and Catra’s text chain several times, thumbs hovering over the keyboard as she pondered millions of questions.

 _Were you able to eat today? Are you sleeping enough? Can you feel them yet?_ But also, _What were you like as a child? What do you think about this whole situation? Do you have any idea what this means to me?_

She stopped herself, always. But the questions were there, and Adora had a hard time justifying all of them as being strictly related to the baby’s health.

“No,” Adora said eventually, sliding her phone into her butt pocket. “Nothing past what she sent last week.”

“But that’s encouraging still!” Bow said, giving the turkey one final pat on its belly and joining Glimmer at the sink. “There’s probably not a lot of news this early. She’ll let you know, I’m sure.”

Just then, the swinging door to the kitchen opened the slightest amount, and miniature, pudgy fingers could be seen curling around its edge.

At once, Adora started beaming, and she crouched to creep up close. “Hello?” she said in a high-pitched voice, pulling the door further ajar.

On the other side stood a toddler, her soft, dark curls pulled taut in pigtails. The little girl, upon seeing Adora, smiled and pressed her face to the door.

“Oh, hello!” Adora squealed, grabbing the girl under the armpits and hoisting her onto her hip. “Oof, Pearly girl, you’re getting big. Come here, do you wanna see the turkey?”

“Turkey,” Pearl confirmed as she leaned her chubby cheek onto Adora’s shoulder.

“Good job! Look, see it?” Adora walked to the kitchen island and pointed at the turkey. “Looks good, huh?”

“Turkey,” Pearl repeated with a nod before, without warning, pitching her upper body forward.

Adora caught her around the ribs right before she face-planted. “Ah, ah, we don’t do that yet.” Twisting around, she said, “Look, Pearl! Look who’s here!”

“Hi, angel baby,” Bow gushed as he dried his hands with a towel, placing noisy kisses against Pearl’s cheek.

Pearl laughed from deep in her tummy as she pressed her hand over one of Bow’s eyes. “Unca Bow.”

Bow melted completely. “Did you hear that?” he asked excitedly, grabbing Glimmer’s arm as she joined him. “Pearl, say it again. What’s my name?”

Pearl crumpled under the immense pressure of four adults looking at her at once. She threw her arms around Adora’s neck to tuck her head under Adora’s chin.

“Shut _up_ ,” Adora whispered to no one in particular, in absolute ecstasy as she squeezed Pearl back. Louder, she said, “Come on, Pearly, you can do it. Look.” She pointed at Bow and, safe under Adora’s jaw, Pearl’s eyes followed. “Who’s that, huh?”

“Unca Bow,” Pearl mumbled, inciting coos from her onlookers.

“That’s right, Uncle Bow! Yay! And who’s that?” she asked, pointing at Glimmer.

“Antimmer.”

“Close enough,” Glimmer said, lightly pinching Pearl’s socked foot. Pearl retracted her foot immediately, though, and dove back for cover between Adora’s head and shoulder. Glimmer groaned. “This kid hates me!”

Bow’s jaw dropped. “No, she doesn’t!”

“At least,” Adora added with a chuckle as she rocked Pearl back and forth, “not as much as she used to. Remember when she’d scream whenever you were in the room?”

Glimmer threw her hands in the air, just as the kitchen door swung open once more, revealing a rather frazzled-looking Sea Hawk.

“Oh, thank god,” he muttered, stooping over with his hands on his knees. Coming upright, he yelled behind him, “My darling, she’s in the kitchen! Just as I said!”

Hearing his voice, Pearl straightened up. “Da-dee!” she shouted, roughly pushing away from Adora to hold her hands out to Sea Hawk.

“Oh, so now I’m chopped liver?” Adora said as she transferred Pearl into Sea Hawk’s outstretched arms. “I see how it is.”

Mermista came into the kitchen as well, to whom Pearl started chattering, “Ma, ma, ma, ma—”

Pausing for just a moment to press a kiss to Pearl’s forearm, Mermista looked to her partner with a withering glare. “So you left her in the kitchen, on purpose, knowing that she would be supervised?”

“Yes, of course, my dearest,” Sea Hawk said, his voice cracking a bit halfway through his sentence. “Like I told you—”

“And she didn’t just happen to wander into a room with a twenty-five pound, half-frozen slab of meat just _waiting_ to be pulled down, and get lucky enough to find adults in here, while you were napping on the couch?”

Sea Hawk hesitated for a moment too long.

“That’s what I thought,” Mermista said, taking Pearl from her father with a quiet, “Come here, sweet girl.”

“I had her!” Adora cut in. “I was watching her the whole time.”

Mermista hummed. “And when you started watching her, was she accompanied by her father?”

“Uh. . . Ye-es.”

Mermista rolled her eyes. “You’re a shit liar, Adora.”

“Oh!” Sea Hawk called as he clasped his hand over his mouth. “Oh, oh! Bad word! Bad word in front of the baby!”

“Bad word!” Pearl confirmed, grinning madly and pressing her mother’s face between her hands.

Mermista snorted and kissed Pearl’s nose. “I’m not saying I’m not _also_ a bad parent,” she explained to the group. “I was just confirming that Daddy was the bad parent first, here. Come on, you two,” she added, swinging Pearl to one hip and grabbing Sea Hawk’s hand with her free one. “Let’s go see about taking a nap.”

“I’m all rested up, my love, but—”

“For the _baby_ , dummy,” Mermista corrected, and the family exited the kitchen together.

When the door swung closed, Castaspella smiled a watery smile at Adora. “You’re so good with her, dear,” she said.

A slight heat tickled Adora’s ears as she rubbed the back of her neck. “Eh, it’s easy to be good with kids when you only see them a couple hours at a time.”

“Tell that to Antimmer over here,” Bow muttered. He was immediately met with a sharp elbow to the diaphragm, and he laughed. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” Snaking his arms around her waist, he pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Pwease forgive me, Antimmer, pwease!”

“Jesus!” Glimmer exclaimed, laughing as she tried (without that much effort) to twist out of Bow’s embrace. “You’re lucky you’re cute, babe.”

“You guys, don’t be gross, please!” Adora begged.

“Awww,” Bow crooned as he pulled Glimmer along with him, closer and closer to where Adora stood. “I think somebody’s jeawous.”

“Adowa want kissies, too?” Glimmer chimed in, lunging forward to grab at Adora’s wrist. She missed by a fraction of an inch as Adora fled the kitchen.

“Nope! No, thank you!” Adora yelled over her shoulder.

“Kissies for babies!” Glimmer and Bow chanted together as they ran after her in hot pursuit. “Kissies for babies!”

Watching Pearl for short periods of time might not be the best indication of Adora’s potential for motherhood. But she mused—just as Glimmer and Bow caught her around the side and brought her crashing down over the back edge of the couch—that if she could handle her friends, by comparison, a baby should probably (read: _hopefully_ ) be simple.

  
  


Hours later, when all guests in attendance were tucking in to dinner, Adora’s back pocket buzzed. She pulled her phone out to check it, absentmindedly, her mouth already full of stuffing. She almost spit it out, though, when she found the alert had been for a text from Catra.

“No phones, please,” Perfuma said. “Technologically interrupts our ability to be present with each other during—”

“Stuff it, it’s her birth mom,” Glimmer interrupted, obviously alerted by Adora’s choking sound as she swallowed the stuffing half-chewed and peering over her shoulder.

Perfuma, though she looked a little insulted, did stuff it, and Adora swiped at her phone to open the text.

_Is that offer to help out with whatever still good?_

Brow furrowed, Adora typed back, _Of course. What’s up?_

Immediately after that, the bubble with ellipses that indicated a new reply was forthcoming popped up. But then, just as quickly, it was gone.

“What does she want?” Bow asked from across the table.

“No idea, yet.” Adora gave it a couple of extra seconds, and then put her phone face up next to her plate. “Sorry, guys, I have to keep this out.”

“We understand completely,” Micah, at the table’s head, said with a nod. “Don’t fret.”

Conversation around her picked back up, but Adora couldn’t muster the energy to participate in it. Not while a strange, bad-vibes kind of feeling was setting up shop in her stomach.

Minutes passed and, just as Adora re-picked up her fork to slice a piece of turkey, came the patterned _bzzt, bzzt, bzzt_ of a phone call. Adora stared at the name on the screen for a long second before launching to her feet and rushing out of the formal dining room and onto the back patio. Sheltered from a steady rain under the driftwood awning, Adora answered the call. “Catra?”

After a short pause, Catra answered, her voice—if Adora’s ears weren’t wrong—a little shaky. “ _Hey, Adora._ ”

“Hey.” Adora perched herself at the edge of a wrought-iron coffee table, staring at the way the rain hit the surface of Micah’s pool. The rings created by random raindrops barely had time to expand before they were broken by new raindrops. “What’s going on? Are you. . . okay?”

“ _That’s the million-dollar question,_ ” Catra mumbled—quietly enough that Adora thought maybe she’d tried to pull the phone away as she said it. “ _I’m fine,_ ” Catra added eventually. “ _Kid’s fine. I just. ._.”

Adora waited patiently for Catra to continue. That meant that they sat in silence for about thirty seconds before Adora prompted, “Tell me what’s up.” A beat, then, “Please?”

There was a big _whoosh_ as Catra sighed into the phone. Finally, she asked, “ _Where are you right now?_ ”

“My boss’s house,” Adora answered. “Why, where are you?”

“ _Um. . ._ Your _house?_ ”

The reaction that one might usually expect—fear that a stranger had found her address, or anger that that stranger had gone to her address unannounced while she wasn’t home—evaded Adora entirely. Instead, Adora’s immediate reaction was to say, “Stay where you are. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  
  


It only actually took Adora twenty-one minutes to get back home with the two yellow lights that she pushed and the one red light that she straight-up ignored. Still, it was with an inexplicable worry that Catra had disappeared back into the night that Adora pulled into her driveway. It wasn’t until she followed the path to her front door that she saw Catra, sitting on the welcome mat with her legs crossed and her eyes on her phone. Beside her were an overstuffed backpack and a cat carrier.

“Is that Melog?” Adora asked. Why that was the question she chose to address first was anyone’s guess. But it did, at least, successfully get Catra’s attention as her head snapped up to Adora, to the left at the carrier, and back up to Adora.

“Uh, yep. That’s her.”

Adora stepped under the shelter of her front patio and, shaking out her ponytail to rid it of stray droplets, crouched to her knees to look inside the carrier. She thought it was empty at first, until she noticed two pale eyes staring at her from the center of a black vortex.

“Hello,” Adora said.

Melog hissed.

“Okay, then,” Adora said, rocking back on her haunches to sit on the concrete across from Catra. Once settled, she asked, “So, what’s going on with you?”

Catra’s eyebrows dipped low over her eyes. “Are you serious? That’s your first question? Not, _Hey, you lunatic, how did you find where I live?_ Or, _Why the hell are you here?_ ”

“No. My first question was about Melog. But I guess we can do those next?”

Catra dropped her face into her hands. “You’re such an idiot.”

“So I’ve been told,” Adora said, smiling despite the horribly odd situation. “Seriously, though, let’s start with an easy one. How did you find my house?”

“I looked at your file,” Catra murmured, her voice a bit muffled by her fingers.

“Okay.” Adora nodded, like that was a totally normal answer. “Why?”

Catra looked up, her expression pained. “Look, I don’t want to be here, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go. My friend Scorpia is out of town visiting her moms and I can’t ask her to come home because she’s a six-hour plane ride away and she would absolutely do it without question and I have done nothing to deserve that. I tried calling Entrapta but she’s off doing who knows what with who knows who, and she lives in a hoarder’s nest anyway, it’s _disgusting_. I don’t like any of my coworkers and they don’t like me so that’s out of the question. And that’s it, that’s literally everybody I know.” With a gigantic sigh, Catra dropped her face back into her hands. “Except you.”

“Catra,” Adora said in an even voice. “Do you need a place to stay?”

After a pause, Catra sniffed. “This is humiliating.”

Adora frowned. “What happened? Why’d you leave home?”

With that question, Adora realized that she had no idea what _home_ was to Catra. A house, an apartment? Did she live alone, with a roommate, or with a partner?

Catra interrupted Adora’s monologue with a scoff. “I just had to get out of there. I couldn’t be there with her anymore.”

 _Her._ “A girlfriend?” Adora asked before she could stop herself. A sickening feeling swooped through her gut.

But Catra looked up again and cringed. “Ew, no,” she said. “Not my girlfriend, my mother.”

“Your mother?”

“Adoptive,” Catra clarified with a look of distaste. “She hates me. In all fairness, though, I can’t say the feeling’s not mutual.”

Adora pulled her knees up to rest her chin upon them. “So then what happened? Did you guys fight?”

“Yeah, but that’s normal. Listen—” Catra pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “—I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow, okay? And I’ll explain it all before I leave, I swear. But I’m just. . . so fucking tired.”

Adora checked her phone. “It’s eight o’clock.”

“Yeah, and I’m pregnant and puking all the time. I get tired early.” Catra stopped, then rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers. “Sorry. I just. . .”

Adora didn’t hesitate again before getting to her feet and holding out her hand to help Catra get to hers. “I have two guest rooms,” Adora said. “Take your pick.”


	4. Third

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adora and Catra enter into a new, vastly more complicated arrangement.

Adora woke early the next morning. Not yet fully conscious, she stretched out her legs, toes curling in the chill air of her bedroom until, suddenly, they were curling against something warm and soft. Her eyes shot open, and she scanned the far end of her mattress when she found Melog, sitting unnaturally upright and glaring at Adora’s foot like it had offended her.

“Hi?” Adora said on an exhale, and Melog’s attention snapped to her. Her pale, blue eyes were wide, kind of scary wide, and looked very much as if Melog was weighing her options between attacking Adora and running off. “It’s okay,” Adora said, keeping her voice low as, slowly, she extended her fingers as far as she could without moving her body. Melog hesitated, then leaned forward, sniffing the air between her nose and Adora’s fingers curiously.

The doorbell rang and, in the blink of an eye, Melog had bolted out of sight.

Adora removed her phone from its charger to open her security-system app. From there, she tapped on the notification, _Somebody is at your door!_ Stifling a yawn as she waited for the live camera to load, she wondered offhandedly whether Glimmer and Bow had decided to visit her. That would be weird, though, considering that, one, they usually texted to make sure she was home first and, two, they never rang the doorbell because they each had a copy of her key. It would be weirder still for them to come so early, Adora realized, as she checked the time in the corner of her screen and discovered that it was just past six o’clock in the morning.

Adora’s heart gave one great _thud_ against her sternum when the video feed finally loaded and showed a police officer standing on her welcome mat.

She fumbled to press the _talk_ button. “Can—Can I help you, officer?” Adora asked, her voice hitching a bit on the question. A million possibilities flitted through her mind— _An accident? A crime? A death?_ —as she awaited the officer’s reply.

“ _Apologies for bothering you so early, miss,_ ” the woman, who was tall and dark, answered. “ _My name is Officer Juliet DeLisle. I have some questions for you about the car parked outside your property. Would you mind coming outside to talk?_ ”

“Oh,” Adora sighed in relief. Not that she had any idea what Officer DeLisle was talking about, but still. No one was dead. That was definitely a plus. “Yeah, of course, I’ll be right there.”

As she walked to the front door, pulling a robe over her tank top and sweatpants, Adora spared a passing glance into the guest bedroom. Its door was cracked open just enough to reveal Melog, staring back at Adora with accusation in her eyes. Catra, it seemed from the quiet, was still asleep.

“Yeah, you too,” Adora said to Melog. She traversed the hallway, turned into the front room, and opened the front door.

“Are you the homeowner?” Officer DeLisle asked, stepping back so that Adora could close the security door behind her.

“I am,” Adora confirmed with a nod. She wrapped her robe more tightly around her body in the morning’s frigid air. “What’s going on?”

Officer DeLisle motioned at the cul de sac, at the apex of which a dark green sedan was parked. “This car that’s parked in front of your property, have you seen it before?”

Squinting, Adora recognized it as the car Catra drove away from Starbucks a week and a half earlier. In her haste the previous night, Adora hadn’t even noticed it. “Oh, yeah, that’s my—my friend’s car.”

“Is it?” Officer DeLisle asked, pulling out a block-cased phone to type something. “Is she inside?”

“Yeah, she’s sleeping.”

“Can I speak with her?”

“Uh—” Adora hesitated, glancing over her shoulder. “Can I ask what this is about first? Did. . .” Looking back to Officer DeLisle, Adora dropped her voice. “Did my homeowner’s association report it? I know we’re not supposed to have visitors park overnight on the street, but I figured—”

Officer DeLisle laughed, not unkindly, and said, “No, no, this isn’t a matter of breaking your HOA’s rules, we don’t get called for that. Well, usually. Depends on the complainant.” A little more seriously, she added, “The car was reported stolen yesterday evening by its owner.”

Adora, unable to help herself, dropped her jaw to her chin. “ _Stolen?_ It was _stolen?_ Who—who’s its owner, if not. . .”

Swiping up on her phone, Officer DeLisle replied, “Call came from. . . there it is, Shadow Weaver Toussaint. Are you aware if your friend knows Ms. Toussaint?”

“ _Shadow Weaver?_ ”

“She’s my mother,” came Catra’s groggy voice from behind the screen door. It opened with a creak and, wrapped in the guest bed’s throw blanket, Catra stood next to Adora.

“Miss,” Officer DeLisle asked, pointing to Catra’s car, “are you aware that Ms. Toussaint reported this vehicle stolen last night?”

For a reason completely beyond Adora’s comprehension, Catra snorted. “No, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

“Do you have any documentation proving your relationship with Ms. Toussaint?”

“My ID’s inside. I’ve got her last name.”

“Would you bring it out so I can look at it, please?”

“Will do, chief,” Catra said sarcastically, turning to disappear back through Adora’s front door. After a second, Adora followed her.

“Your _mother_ ,” Adora hissed, somehow managing to both whisper and yell at the same time. “Shadow Weaver is your _mother._ ”

“Adoptive,” Catra corrected far, _far_ too casually. “Did I not mention that?”

“ _No!_ ”

“My bad.” Catra pushed the guest room door open and, keeping the blanket tight around her chest with one hand, used the other to burrow into the front zip pouch of her backpack. Retrieving her wallet, she held it out to Adora. “Can you get my ID out for me?”

Pouting, Adora took the wallet. As she rifled through it, she quipped, “You could do it yourself if you just dropped the blanket.”

“If you’re okay with me standing in front you pantless then, fine, I’ll drop the blanket.”

Blushing to the ends of her ponytail, Adora fished out Catra’s ID and tossed the wallet onto the bed. But before Adora could splutter anything embarrassing about Catra’s being pantless under her blanket toga, she was distracted by Catra’s full name, plain as day: _Catra Toussaint._

“I feel like _this_ ,” Adora snapped, waving Catra’s ID in her face, “should’ve been brought up at literally _any point_ before now!”

“Why?” Catra asked, plucking the ID from Adora’s fingers and stepping around her to reenter the hallway. “Do you not want the baby now, or something?”

Adora stumbled a bit just as she caught up to Catra. “What? No, of _course_ I want the baby. Why—”

“Good,” Catra said sharply. “Because if you didn’t, that was going to cause a big fucking problem for me.”

Once they’d made it around the corner and through the front room, Catra reached for the door handle. Adora placed her hand over Catra’s, however, stopping her from pulling it open. “We are not done talking about this,” she stated.

Catra took a second to sneer, and then said, “Fine,” prompting Adora to drop her hand. Once back outside, Catra offered her ID to Officer DeLisle with an outstretched arm and a cheeky, “At ease, captain.”

Officer DeLisle barely paid Catra any mind as she took her ID, surveyed it quickly, and handed it back. As she did so, she pulled a radio from the back of her belt and held it to her mouth to mutter, “This is Juliet, I’m at the car. Did the vic happen to mention that it was her _daughter_ driving it?” Officer DeLisle held the radio to her ear to listen to its response, the crackling too loud to be distinguishable from where Adora stood. But with an eye roll, Officer DeLisle replaced the radio and reported, “Apparently, it slipped your mom’s mind.”

“Of course,” Catra deadpanned. “Totally understandable.”

“Listen,” Officer DeLisle said, pinching the bridge of her nose as she spoke. “The family shit is between you and her. But do you own the car, or does she?”

Catra hesitated, then grunted, “It’s in her name.”

“Then I gotta have it towed back to her. Unless you want to drop it off?”

“Take it,” Catra said. “I don’t care.” Then, without another word, she went back inside, slamming the door behind her.

Cringing, Adora turned back to Officer DeLisle. “Sorry about her. She’s just. . .”

“Don’t be. Trust me, I’ve seen worse.” With a sympathetic smile, Officer DeLisle added, “Family can be hard.”

“Yeah,” Adora chuckled nervously. “Right.”

After Officer DeLisle left, Adora went straight to Catra’s room. The door was still ajar, so she didn’t bother to knock before pushing it open and saying, “Okay, so, I think it’s time that—”

But she stopped dead, as Catra was curled up on the bed and facing the wall, Melog curled protectively against her back, purring.

“Catra,” Adora said.

No response. Just deep, rhythmic breathing. Not even Melog bothered to pick up her head.

Adora stood there, just watching, for a couple of extra seconds before she said, much lower in volume, “We’re still not done talking about this!” And then she left the room, careful to shut the door very softly behind her as she did.

  
  


A couple of hours later, Glimmer and Bow found Adora on her back patio, staring listlessly off into the distance.

“Hey,” Bow said, holding the side gate open for Glimmer and shaking a paper grocery bag in his free hand. “Guess what we brought you?”

Snapping to attention, chest brimming with hope, Adora dared to ask, “Leftovers?”

“Leftovers!” Bow confirmed.

Adora could’ve burst into tears, but instead she just held out her hands. “Gimme.”

Bow handed the bag over and, as Adora ripped into it, he and Glimmer took their seats on the bench under the window. “So,” Glimmer said, one eyebrow tilted, “are you gonna tell us why there’s a tow truck in front of your house?”

Mouth already full of cold—but still deliciously moist—turkey, Adora replied, “It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got time,” Glimmer said, kicking up her heels to rest them on top of the metal coffee table.

Bow shuffled back into his seat, too, and said, “Let’s start with last night after you ran off like a bat outta heck without a word to anyone.”

“Last night,” Adora repeated, prying open a container of cold mashed potatoes and using it like a dip for the turkey. “To be honest, there’s a lot I don’t know myself.”

Narrowing his eyes at her, Bow said, “Why don’t you give it a try.”

Adora swallowed her over-large mouthful of turkey mash with a wince. “Well. . . Catra came here—”

Glimmer’s jaw dropped. “Catra came _here_?”

“—stayed the night—”

“Catra’s _still here?_ ”

“—and had her car towed because she apparently had a fight with her mother, who happens to be the case manager of the adoption agency and who called the police reporting it stolen.”

Bow and Glimmer wore matching expressions, looking very much like they’d been smacked over their heads with a cast-iron skillet. Adora, meanwhile, unwrapped a dinner roll from its aluminum-foil casing, popped it into her mouth whole, and chewed on it thoughtfully.

“Huh,” she mumbled around the half-masticated roll. “I guess it’s not that long of a story.”

Glimmer recovered first. “Adora, that cannot be it. That cannot be all you’re operating on right now.”

Adora shrugged. “I told Catra we needed to talk about it, but she’s still asleep.”

“Then wake her up and ask her what the hell is going on! Shake her awake, if you have to!” Suddenly, Glimmer stood. “I’ll do it myself!”

“Whoa,” Adora said, staring up at Glimmer incredulously. “Why would you do that? Just let her—”

“ _Adora_ ,” Glimmer snapped, smiling at her in such an exasperated way that Adora couldn’t help but feel a little patronized. “There is a stranger, in your home, that you know _nothing_ about. She shows up, completely out of the blue, in the possession of a _stolen vehicle_ , and you _let her in_?”

Adora’s brow furrowed. “Catra’s not a stranger, Glimmer. She’s pregnant with my kid.”

“So she says!”

Before she knew what she was doing, Adora was on her feet as well. “Hey, enough!” Adora barked, looming over Glimmer to her full height. “You think she’s _tricking_ me with that? I was at the doctor’s, Glimmer. I _saw_ them on the ultrasound.”

“At the doctor’s that _Shadow Weaver_ hired,” Glimmer shouted—to her credit, refusing to back down as she stared into Adora’s eyes. “The Shadow Weaver who’s her _mother_ , which both of them conveniently failed to tell you!”

Adora opened her mouth to respond, but Bow got there first as he laid his hand on Adora’s bicep. “Glimmer, you’re being way out of line right now.”

“Out of line?” Glimmer laughed humorlessly, throwing her arms wide. “Oh, _I’m_ sorry, my husband thinks his little wife is—”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Bow interrupted.

“Yeah, great reaction, Glimmer,” Adora spat. “Totally not the least bit defensive.”

Bow turned to her, stepping between them. “Stop it, Adora. And back off of her a bit, okay? You don’t need to hulk out on her, she’s just worried about you.”

“Well, don’t,” Adora said—although she did move away a bit. “I’m an adult, I can handle myself.”

Glimmer crossed her arms, her voice a bit less heated as she responded, “I know you are, but you can also be a little—” Glimmer stopped herself, obviously biting her tongue.

Adora scoffed. “No, go on, say it. I’m a little what?”

With a great sigh, Glimmer said, “All I mean is that you can be a little. . . shortsighted, once you have your mind set on something.”

“Shortsighted?”

“Yeah, like—” Glimmer carded her hands through her hair, its black roots a tad overgrown. “—one day you decide you want a baby, and a week later we’re at an adoption agency. You decide you want _her_ as the birth mother, and you refuse to look at anyone else in the book. And now this!”

Shaking her head, Adora said, “I don’t know what you want me to do. Catra is pregnant. It’s too late to do anything about that.” Softer, she added, “I don’t _want_ to do anything about that. I want this baby, Glimmer. And Catra. . . you just don’t know her. You’ve never even _met_ her.”

After Adora and Glimmer spent a couple of long, silent seconds staring at anything but each other, Bow cut in. “Okay, here’s a solution. Glimmer?”

Glimmer hummed, eyes focused on the ceiling of the patio.

“Let Adora handle her own private business, okay? And Adora?”

Adora grunted, her eyes on her own feet.

“Get to the bottom of this, maybe? Not for us, but for you? And maybe, when and if you think the time is right, just maybe introduce us all?” When neither woman answered, Bow said, “Great. Go, team. Glimmer, let’s give them some space, huh?”

Wordlessly, Glimmer allowed Bow to shepherd her to the back gate. When they reached it, she turned to look at Adora and say, “Just. . . Just text us, will you? If you need something?”

Adora hesitated, then nodded. “I will. I promise.”

Bow gave the pair of them kind of a sad smile, and then he and Glimmer exited the yard. After a few extra moments of deep breathing, Adora did as well, sliding open the glass door to her house and bringing her leftovers with her. As she did, she was greeted with the sight of Catra (this time, fully dressed), bent over on her knees searching under the kitchen table.

“Oh, I didn’t know you were awake,” Adora said before she really processed what she was looking at. When she did, she also noticed Melog’s carrier, open and empty at Catra’s side. “Uh, what are you doing?”

“Leaving,” Catra said in a voice that would’ve been casual if not for the way that, upon standing, she avoided Adora’s eyes completely.

“Leaving?” Adora asked as she watched Catra bring the carrier around the sectional to check between its seats and the ottoman. “Why?”

“I told you I’d get out of your hair. I’m sticking to that.”

“Okay. But. . . Do you have a place you’re going _to?_ I mean, is your friend back in town already?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

With a roll of her eyes, Adora plopped the bag of food on the kitchen counter. “That’s a _no_ , then.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Catra said, placing the carrier on the couch before crossing her arms in front herself. “I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t. But you don’t have to leave right away, either.” Adora cocked her head to the side. “Are you okay?”

Catra turned on her heel in an instant. “Super duper,” she said before stalking down the hallway.

Adora followed her. “Okay, well, it doesn’t _sound_ like you’re super duper.”

Barking out a quick, mirthless laugh, Catra said, “Oh, well, I guess that’s something else I’m trying to trick you about.”

“What are you—Oh.” Adora winced. “You heard that, didn’t you? What happened outside?”

“ _No_ , no!” Catra said flippantly, winding into the guest room and dropping to her knees again to look under the bed. “Your batshit friend was being super quiet. I didn’t hear a thing!”

“Okay, _what_ are you doing?”

“Looking for valuables or for my cat, whichever comes first,” Catra groaned, righting herself. Putting her hand on her hips, she added, “Before I leave, though, do you want me to pee on a stick for you? I don’t have any pregnancy tests on me, but we could drive to the convenience store real quick! Oh, I should warn you, though. Some girl who was the grade above me in elementary school is the clerk there now. I wouldn’t want you to think she tampered—”

“Catra, I don’t feel that way!” Adora couldn’t help but shout. “And if you’d listened to the whole conversation—which you obviously _didn’t_ —you would know that! Now, please, will you come out to the living room with me so we can talk?”

“About what?” Catra asked coldly. She bumped shoulders with Adora on her back way out of the room.

Again, Adora pursued her. “Uh, about _everything?_ ”

They reentered the kitchen, Catra basically spinning in a circle as she surveyed the space for more hiding places. “I don’t see the point. I’m on my way out. I’ll see you at the doctor’s in three weeks. If even you’re still in, that is.” After a fourth rotation, Catra yelled, “ _Melog, get your dumbass in here or I swear to_ god _I’m leaving without you!_ ”

“With what car?” Adora said to her own feet.

Catra whipped around to point a finger in Adora’s face, mouth open to yell something at _her_ this time, almost certainly. But just as quickly as she’d opened her mouth, she snapped it shut again, her teeth clicking together audibly as she did so. For a second, Catra just stood there, finger outstretched, looking like she had just remembered something. Then, with a guttural, “ _Fuck me_ ,” Catra sprinted back down the hallway. This time, when Adora ran after her, she turned the corner just in time to hear the splashing sound of liquid hitting porcelain coming from the guest bathroom.

“Oh, jeez,” Adora sighed. She made a quick trip to the kitchen for a glass of water, and brought it with her into the guest bathroom, pushing open the unlatched door with the kick of her toe.

“God, go _away_ ,” Catra mumbled before convulsing, retching some more with a loud cough that sounded like a cat producing a hairball.

Adora ignored her and stepped over her feet to sit on the lip of the bathtub. She waited patiently as Catra finished yacking, then held the glass out to her. “Here. Take small sips.”

Catra accepted the glass wordlessly, but placed it on the tile next to the toilet without drinking at all. Adora was about to scold her for it when Catra explained, “It’ll just set me off again. I gotta wait a couple more minutes for this to pass first.”

For the briefest of moments, Adora considered brushing Catra’s wild mop of hair back from her face, or rubbing her back between her shoulder blades. She always did that for Glimmer when she’d come home too drunk, back when they lived together. Successfully ignoring those insanely inappropriate impulses, though, Adora stood instead. “I’m going to leave you alone. But you have to come out talk to me when you’re done, okay?”

Catra hesitated, then nodded.

“Okay. I’ll see you on the couch.”

  
  


Half an hour later, after Catra tucked herself into the corner of the sectional like she would rather it just swallowed her whole, she said, “Fine. I’m here. You’ve got an hour before I call a Lyft.”

“Okay,” Adora said carefully. “Thank you for that. Let’s start at the beginning then, shall we?”

Catra shrugged noncommittally, her arms wrapped around her knees.

Adora took that as a go-ahead. “All right. So. . . Shadow Weaver is your mother.”

“Adoptive,” Catra snapped like it was a knee-jerk reaction.

“Adoptive mother, right.” Frowning, Adora inched forward on the couch. Although it barely made a dent in the multiple-foot space between them, Catra seemed to shrink in a bit on herself as Adora did it. Sighing, Adora said, “I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to be honest with me, okay? It’s not going to change my mind about—” Adora pointed between them. “—what we’re doing here. Okay?”

Catra’s narrowed eyes relaxed minutely. “Okay?”

“Okay.” With a deep breath, Adora steeled herself. “Did Shadow Weaver make you do this?”

“Do what?”

Again, Adora pointed between them and, for good measure, nodded her chin at Catra’s abdomen. “ _This._ Did Shadow Weaver make you sign up for this?”

Strangely, Catra chuckled. It was weak, but there it was. “Not exactly, no. But I’m sure she wasn’t disappointed.”

“Why do you say that?”

Catra sighed and looked at the ceiling. “I signed up to be a surrogate, like, two years ago, I think? Because I wanted to use the money to get out of her house. I thought if I stayed there just a little bit longer, collected my checks, and kept working at the cafe, I’d be set to get my own place as soon as this was all over.”

“Oh,” Adora said. “That’s understandable. But—wait. Two years?”

Smirking, Catra replied, “Yeah. You’re the first to pick me in two years. I’m clearly very desirable.”

Ignoring that statement (and what would have been Adora’s honest response that, _yes_ , she was), Adora asked, “So why’d you leave now?”

At that, Catra’s face darkened. “Because she did what she always does and decided to gouge me for every penny I have.” Before Adora could ask what she meant, Catra prompted, “How much are you paying her for this? A lot, right? Like, upwards of a hundred thousand?”

Balking, Adora said, “Uh. . . Yeah. About that. Maybe a little more. . .”

“Do you know how much the surrogates get?”

“No.”

“One thousand per month.”

Jaw dropping, Adora said, “You’re kidding.”

“Do you wanna see the pay stub?”

“No, I—I believe you. I just. . . One thousand? Per _month?_ That’s barely enough for rent! Let alone utilities, food, car payments, insurance, gas—”

“Trust me, I get that. Before all of this, I was paying her about two thousand per month—”

“ _Two thousand?_ ” Adora gasped. “Just to stay in her house?”

Catra hesitated. “It’s. . . a little more than that. She had to pay off my loans for three years of college. Legal fees for. . . something stupid I did a couple of years back. I have to pay her pack for those. Rent’s on top of that, plus a little extra for utilities, food, the car, you get it.”

“I don’t know, Catra. That sounds. . . kind of extortive. I guess I don’t understand why you were there in the first place.”

Catra scoffed. “I make minimum wage, Adora. If you can tell me how else I can get all that in a neighborhood half as nice as the one Shadow Weaver lives in for two thousand a month, I’d _love_ to hear it.”

Adora didn’t have an answer for that. “But she was taking basically all of your money? Even though she’s walking away with about six figures from every case that comes through the agency?”

“Basically, yeah,” Catra said. “And then yesterday, she asked for more.”

“More?” Adora repeated, gaping. “How on earth could she ask for more?”

“I’ll be ‘eating more,’” Catra punctuated with finger quotes. “‘Using more resources.’ I ‘wreaked havoc’ on her plumbing with how sick I’ve been. So she asked for an extra eight hundred.” Hugging her knees tighter, Catra added, “I would’ve barely walked away with any savings, and that’s assuming I’d be able to keep working full time when this whole thing’s a little further along. So—” She shrugged. “I left.”

“Jeez,” Adora said on an exhale. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize how _little_ of what I’m paying to the agency goes to you. If I had known. . .”

“Eh, that’s not your fault,” Catra said, smiling the smallest amount.

“So what now?” Adora asked.

Catra’s smile dropped at once. “I’ll let myself into Scorpia’s place. I lost her key, but I’m sure one of her neighbors has one.”

“And if they don’t?”

Catra looked to the side. “I’ll find a way in somehow, don’t worry about me.”

“How long are you gonna be at Scorpia’s, you think?”

“Only until she gets home, probably,” Catra answered. “Her place is really small, a studio. I wouldn’t stick around there.”

“And then?”

Mouth going into a tight line, Catra replied (a bit testily), “I’ll figure it out, okay? I can get some cheap-o car and some cheap-o apartment to use until I save up a bit more money.”

Adora grimaced. “Between your job and the birth expenses, I don’t know how much savings you’ll be able to put away.”

“Then I’ll get a second job!”

“You can’t do that! Catra, you’re _pregnant_ , you can’t exhaust yourself trying to make ends meet!”

“Pregnant people do that all the time.” With a touch of pride, Catra added, “And I’m tougher than most people. I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know if—”

“What do you want me to do then?” Catra snapped. “Go back to Shadow Weaver’s?”

“No!” Adora snapped back. And, before the idea could fully form in her own mind, she added, “Just stay!”

Catra’s face slackened in obvious shock, but she quickly replaced the expression with an indignant sneer. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Although, so to speak, Adora was building the plane as she flew it, a brilliant smile overcame her face. “No, I mean it! Just _stay_ , stay here!”

The obvious-shock expression won out on Catra once more. “How is that possibly a good idea?”

“It’d be perfect!” Adora, thinking aloud, started counting items on her fingers. “You could stay here, rent free, while you work and collect your birth expenses. You could save up a _lot_ of money in that time, and you would be set for a _while_ after the baby is born. You wouldn’t even have to worry about working if it gets to a point that it’s too hard on you! You could use my car whenever you needed, or I could drop you off wherever—”

“Adora, _stop._ I can’t—I don’t _need_ this, okay?” Catra said, looking less mad than she did confused. “I can take care of myself. I don’t want your help.”

It occurred to Adora that Catra _wanting_ her help and _needing_ it were two different things. And as far as the latter went—well, she had a hard time believing that Catra wouldn’t significantly benefit from the situation Adora was proposing, even if Catra didn’t want to believe it herself. In the short time Adora had known Catra, though, she had seen enough to learn that she was a proud person, and that her name and _charity_ were two words unlikely to share a sentence.

“Do it for me, then,” Adora said, switching tactics.

Catra blinked, clearly taken off guard. “For _you_? What would _you_ get out of it?”

“I’d get. . . to be a bigger part of this.” Adora gestured towards Catra’s midsection again. “I’d get to see it all happen and—and not have to wait for once-a-month doctor’s appointments, or texts. I’d get to see for myself that you’re taking care of you _and_ them, and help as much as you’re willing to let me. I just—” Adora looked deep into Catra’s eyes, which were wide and—if Adora wasn’t mistaken—maybe a little scared? “It would mean so much to me if you’d stay. And the second—literally the _second_ —it becomes too much for you, I’d be happy to help you get a place of your own. Just—Can we give this a chance for a little while? Please?”

Catra blinked again, and again, like her brain was working overtime to try to figure out what Adora was pulling on her. “Are you serious? Like, actually serious? You _want_ me to stay here, for real?”

“Yes,” Adora said, nodding once. “Absolutely.”

“And you won’t, like, hover all over me? You’d give me space and let me—I mean, like, you know that’ll be like we’re playing house, right? I don’t want you to think. . .”

“No!” Waving her hands in front of herself, Adora said, “No, no, I’ll leave you alone, mostly. We’d be, like, regular roommates. Except for, you know, the baby stuff.”

Her eyes narrowing, Catra drawled, “Regular roommates where one is pregnant with the other’s kid. Right. Just like that.”

Unable to help herself, Adora laughed. “I’m sure we’re not the first.”

“Maybe not,” Catra agreed, laughing, too. “But I think most of the others got to at least do the fun part of baby-making first.”

Adora’s face suddenly blazed with heat.

Catra spared her having to answer, though, when she said, “Okay, fine. We’ll try it. But if I want to leave, I leave. Got it?”

“Got it,” Adora replied, relieved, giddiness bubbling up in her stomach like gas.

At that moment, Melog hopped onto the sectional and made her home on Catra’s lap. “ _Now_ you show up,” Catra mumbled, giving her a scratch behind the ears.

“ _Brrp,_ ” Melog chirped.

  
  


Unfortunately, it didn’t take many weeks for the new living situation to start wearing a tad thin.

It started innocently enough. Dishes left in the sink, laundry left in the dryer—typical roommate annoyances that Adora felt she took in stride. Like she’d done when she lived with Glimmer during law school, she tried to correct these annoyances with gentle reminders. Not unlike Glimmer, Catra seemed to take these requests to clean up after herself with a grain of salt. Sometimes they would get done, more often than not they wouldn’t. But rather than stay mad about the whole situation, Adora would usually just bite her tongue and do the damn chores herself. What’s washing the occasional glass, or dumping a load of wrinkled, dry clothes onto Catra’s bed, when Catra was doing a favor so major for her that Adora never thought she’d be able to repay it?

“Catra,” Adora said one day, trying to keep her tone even as she ducked her head into the guest bedroom that Catra had claimed as hers. “I just walked past your bathroom and it smells. . . bad. Like, really bad.”

“Uh huh,” Catra replied casually. Her head hung off the side of the mattress as she swiped at her phone, her bare feet propped against the wall.

Ignoring the threat of footprints that would take forever to clean off the paint, Adora continued. “Are you maybe planning on cleaning Melog’s litter box today, then?”

With a great, tortured sigh, Catra placed her phone on the bed beside her and rolled to sit back on her butt. “Did you know that pregnant people shouldn’t clean litter?”

Adora furrowed her brow. “They shouldn’t?”

Nodding gravely, Catra said, “Yep. Something in cat shit can be toxic. It’s bad for the baby.”

“. . . Are you asking me to clean Melog’s litter box for you?”

Catra’s eyes went wide with exaggerated, innocent shock. “Of course not! I was just trying to—”

“Nevermind,” Adora huffed, already stepping out of Catra’s room. “I’ll just do it, it’s fine.”

“Thanks, Adora!” Catra called after her, her voice sweet, albeit a little strained with the effort—Adora was certain—of laying back down.

Later, when Adora had to hold her breath or else risk the stench of ammonia knocking her out cold, it occurred to her that perhaps Catra wasn’t so ignorant of Adora’s willingness to take on more than her fair share of household chores.

  
  


Transportation was a frequent issue as well. Public transportation did not venture out as far west as Adora lived, which necessitated the constant transfer of Adora’s car. Most days, Catra had to be at her job before Adora had to be at hers, so Adora would drop her off. That meant being on the road at five in the morning (although, to Adora’s relief, it was not as if that was terribly out of the ordinary for her schedule, as it just meant swinging by downtown on the way to her gym).

“Here’s fine,” Catra said the first day this happened, the Monday after she’d begun living at Adora’s house. They were two blocks away from the Fright Zone Cafe.

“I can get you all the way there,” Adora replied. “It’s not a problem.”

Catra rolled her eyes with a chuckle. “Last thing I need is my coworkers to watch me get dropped off in a limo. No, thank you. Here’s fine.”

As Adora pulled to the side of the street, she said, “It’s hardly a limo.”

“It’s definitely the nicest car any of _them_ have ever seen.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Adora asked, trying not to sound as hurt as she was starting to feel.

“ _Nothing_ , jeez, lighten up. I just want to avoid awkward questions, okay?” She opened the passenger-side door and swung her feet onto the sidewalk. With barely a parting, “See ya,” she slammed the door behind her.

The plan, as they had discussed it, would be for Catra to walk the extra three blocks to Adora’s office, which was a modern, one-story building on the edge of downtown. There, after getting off of work around two o’clock, Catra would retrieve the keys and return to take Adora home at five. And that worked mostly fine until a few weeks into their arrangement when, at eleven in the morning on a Wednesday and halfway through a telephonic pretrial conference, Catra burst into Adora’s office unannounced with a curt, “Hey, Adora.”

Adora’s client, a squat, middle-aged woman, turned in her seat to stare unabashedly at Catra—who, despite the fact that they were well into December, wore a low-cut tank top over a pair of black leggings that were ripped at the knees. Adora, meanwhile, jumped to put her phone on mute.

“ _Catra,_ ” she scolded while simultaneously smiling apologetically at her client. “What are you doing here? I’m in the middle of a hearing right now.”

“I need the keys,” Catra replied, holding out her hand expectantly.

“I thought you weren’t off until two?”

“What can I say, I got cut early, okay? I didn’t do it on purpose to bug you.”

Adora pinched the bridge of her nose and got to her feet. “I _know_ you didn’t, but you can’t just _charge_ in here when I’m—”

“Adora,” Adora’s client cut in, pointing at the phone. “Adora, the judge just asked you a question.”

In a flash, Adora was back in her chair, hitting it so hard that it careened into the far side of her desk. “Your honor, my apologies, you cut out there for a minute,” Adora lied through her teeth, sharing a wince with her client. “Can you say that again?”

The judge’s voice—clearly irritated—said, “ _I asked you, Ms. Stevenson, whether your client has complied with the disclosure requests made by opposing counsel. If you have not, pursuant to rule thirty-seven, subsection—_ ”

“I’m sorry for interrupting, judge, but we have complied, and those answers were sent by certified mail to their office the week after the holiday.” As Adora spoke, she rifled through her client’s file and she made eye contact with Catra, nodding with her chin at the hallway. In other words: _Get out._

Catra shook her head, frowning. “I just need the keys,” she hissed.

With great effort, Adora managed to not actually growl at her. “Judge, I know I keep apologizing,” Adora said, “but can I have a few minutes to check with my front desk? The return receipt might be with them, and I can confirm the exact date of delivery.”

“ _Five minutes,_ ” the judge confirmed, and Adora pressed _mute_ once more and stood, grabbing her car keys from next to her computer as she did.

“I’m so sorry about this, I’ll be right back,” she said to her client, patting her gently on the shoulder as she passed behind her chair. “ _Come,_ ” she whispered to Catra, and pulled her by the wrist into the hallway.

“Look at you in lawyer mode,” Catra teased as Adora shut the door behind them. “Nice vibe. Kind of sexy.”

“Here,” Adora said, pressing the keys into Catra’s hand as she stalked down the hall towards reception. “In future, I’ll leave them up here, okay?”

“Sounds good.”

“And also in future, you will not barge in on me when I’m with a client, okay? Unless there’s an emergency.”

“Aye aye,” Catra said, giving Adora a little mock salute. They reached the front desk, and Sea Hawk launched to his feet.

“Adora, my humblest apologies,” he rambled, his hands pressed together under his chin. “I informed her that you were in the middle of a hearing, but she stormed past my guard and—”

Adora cut him off with a sharp wave. “It’s fine. Have we received the return receipt from Missus Paddestoel’s discovery packet?”

“We did this morning!” Sea Hawk confirmed, pulling it from the middle of a stack of papers and handing it over. “Again, I am truly, deeply sorry for—”

“I said it’s _fine_ ,” Adora snapped before turning back to Catra. At least, she’d meant to turn back to Catra, but Catra was gone, the door just latching behind her as she exited. With a sigh, Adora instead turned to the hallway, into which each of her coworkers had popped their heads.

“Was that your surrogate?” Perfuma asked. “I’ve never actually seen her before!”

“No,” Adora said, marching past her without looking. “That was a different woman who’s carrying another one of my kids.”

Bow, from the doorway of his own office, frowned in disapproval. “Adora—”

“I have to get back to my hearing,” she interrupted, barely looking at him—or Glimmer, who stood beside him with her mouth set in a tight line—as she passed.

  
  


The Friday before Adora’s firm began its two-week closure for the holidays, Catra picked her up from work at lunch so that they could attend Catra’s prenatal appointment together. Upon sliding into the passenger seat, Adora groaned, “Jesus, Catra, did you get McDonald’s entire menu?”

“No,” Catra said, taking a sip of soda from a huge plastic cup. “McRibs are out of season, so I couldn’t get that.”

Adora didn’t laugh as she brushed various wrappers from the leather seat onto the floor. Sitting and trying her best not to lose her heels in the mountain of trash, she said, “I guess I’m glad your appetite’s back.”

“Me, too,” Catra muttered, and she pulled the car into traffic as Adora clicked her seatbelt into place.

“You really shouldn’t be eating all this junk, though,” Adora said with a deep frown. “Especially the soda, caffeine is bad for the baby.”

Rolling her eyes, Catra said, “It’s diet.”

“Diet soda still has caffeine.”

“Whatever, it’s fine, it’s not like I eat like this every day.”

“Don’t you, though?” Adora asked, cocking her head to the side. “I feel like I have to clear fast-food stuff out of the car every day. . .”

“Okay, _one_ —” Catra lifted her index finger from the steering wheel. “—if you’re trying to imply that I’m totally at fault for the messy car, you can just say that.”

“It wasn’t like this before you started driving it. . .” Adora grumbled to the passenger-side window.

Catra lifted her middle finger to join her index in the air. “And, _two,_ I went, like, _ten_ weeks with your spawn inside me before I was allowed to eat anything that wasn’t cardboard. So excuse me for trying to catch up.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call them that,” Adora said.

“What, _spawn?_ ” Catra asked.

“Yeah. It’s kind of. . . mean.”

Rolling her eyes even harder than before, Catra asked, “What do you want me to call them, then?” With an extra huff, Catra added, “They’re not mine, okay? I don’t think I should be expected to go around calling them pet names.”

“I’m not asking you to call them a pet name,” Adora replied. “ _The baby_ is fine.”

“Is that what you call them?”

In truth, Adora had really taken to _peanut_ ever since that first sonogram. She didn’t usually say it out loud, though—and she especially wouldn’t say it out loud to Catra. “Yeah, that’s what I call them.”

Scoffing, Catra pulled into the parking lot of the doctor’s office. “You should work on that, then. Try _darling_ _angel_ , maybe. Or _precious gift from above_. Worry less about me, all right?”

Once inside, they were greeted heartily by the receptionist. “Stevenson comma Catra!” he announced with great pleasure. “Right on time!”

Entrapta, who leaned against the desk talking to him, beamed at Adora and Catra both. “Hi, guys! I’m ready to take you back straight away!”

“It’s _Toussaint_ still, Entrapta,” Catra said by way of greeting. “I thought I told you to fix that last time.”

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” Entrapta mused thoughtfully before holding the door to the hallway open to them. “Same exam room, straight on back! And tummy out, please!”

Catra did as instructed, sitting on the patient table and lifting up her shirt as she leaned back. For the first time, though, Adora noticed that Catra’s abdomen was not as flat as it had been before. Nobody who hadn’t seen her stomach three months ago would have suspected that she was pregnant at all. But Adora knew, and Adora could see the gentle, solid slope that peaked an inch under Catra’s belly button.

“Holy shit,” Adora whispered, despite herself.

Catra looked over, but yelped as Entrapta squirted her with the transmission gel without warning. “ _Jesus,_ Entrapta, stop doing that!”

Ignoring her gloriously, Entrapta muttered, “So assuming that fertilization occurred on the same day the procedure was performed, you should be at eleven weeks and one day.” Grinning, she added, “Congrats on nearing the end of your first trimester! Externally, it looks like the baby is growing right on target, and internally. . .” Entrapta trailed off as she pushed the fetal Doppler over Catra’s skin. Right where it had been found the last time, the steady _whoosh, whoosh, whoosh_ pumped, louder and clearer than before. “Yep! Sounds great, too.” She pulled away and handed Catra a wipe.

“Aren’t we doing another ultrasound?” Adora asked.

“Nah,” Entrapta answered, “we don’t do another one of those until the visit after next. Right, Doc?”

“That’s correct,” Dr. Hordak said from where he’d previously gone unnoticed in the corner, scaring the living daylights out of Adora as he spoke. Catra appeared to share the sentiment, as she started and pressed her hand to her chest.

“Okey doke,” Entrapta said. “We’re on track for our July ninth due date. Now just lemme get some of your blood.”

  
  


As they walked back to Adora’s car an hour later, she beckoned for the keys.

“I’m fine,” Catra said, headed for the driver’s side door.

“You just had some blood sucked out of you. Let me drive.”

“Will you stop hovering? I told you—”

“I’m not hovering, I care about my kid getting to July ninth in one piece,” Adora snapped. “Now give me the keys.”

Wordlessly, Catra tossed them over—with more power than absolutely necessary, as Adora felt one of the house keys nearly impale her palm. They got in the car together and, silently, pulled out into the road, pointed towards home.

Maybe five minutes out, Catra—who had been sulking against the car door—asked, “What did you mean by that?”

“By what?”

“By _I wanna get my kid to July ninth in one piece,_ ” Catra mimicked, pitching her voice in a low, unintelligent mockery of Adora’s.

“I meant what I said,” Adora said simply. “I just don’t want to take unnecessary risks.”

“ _Unnecessary risks_ ,” Catra repeated. After a short pause, she adjusted herself in her seat to face Adora square-on. “Do you think I’m just, like, a complete dumbass?”

Adora, a bit shocked, took the chance to glance quickly at Catra. Her brows were furrowed, her mouth turned sharply downward. “No,” Adora answered. “Why would you think that?”

“Do you really think that I’d drive if I felt like I was about to keel over?” Catra asked. “Do you think that I’m just sitting around guzzling soda all day? I might not be as freakily healthy as _you_ , but I’m _fine_. More than fine! You heard Entrapta, kid’s growing a-okay!” At that point, Catra gave the two most sarcastic thumbs up in recorded history. “So I’d appreciate it if you’d drop the whole holier-than-thou act.”

Struck dumb, Adora could only gape at the street before her until she pulled into her driveway. As Catra went to unbuckle her seatbelt, Adora stopped her with her hand. “I’m not trying to be patronizing,” Adora said, keeping her voice carefully measured. “I don’t think you’re an idiot. But I do get the impression that you’re not taking this especially seriously. And this is really, _really_ serious to me. Can’t you understand that?”

“Can’t _you_ understand,” Catra replied with a fair amount of heat, “that I’m not your servant? I’m doing what I need to do to get this kid to the finish line while still maintaining some—some semblance of myself!”

“Of _course_ you’re not a servant.” In spite of her best efforts, though, Adora began to shout. “But _you_ signed up to get pregnant with somebody else’s baby. That was _your_ choice. For nine short months, can you maybe take my wishes into account? You’re not going to be the one who has to deal with any long-term effects of—of your _recklessness._ You can get yourself all to yourself again in July!”

“Fuck off!” Catra shouted back. “If you wanted this much control, you should’ve just had the baby yourself!”

“ _I can’t!_ ” Adora yelled, so loud that Catra leaned back, blinking stupidly at her like she’d never seen her before. Adora, her breathing choppy and hard, wiped her eye with the back of her hand. “I can’t,” she said again, shakily, “or else I would.” Then she took the keys out of the ignition, stepped out of the car, and slammed the door behind her, Catra still inside.

  
  


Adora and Catra avoided each other for over two weeks following their argument. It was like living with a ghost. Although Adora found evidence that Catra was, in fact, still residing inside of her home (hearing the hallway shower late at night, or whispered phone conversations that were unintelligible from Adora’s room, et cetera), Adora did not actually find Catra herself except for the rare occasions they would bump into each other in the kitchen. These exchanges were stonily silent, and one or the other of them would flee within a minute’s time. But Catra still worked five days out of the week, so at least Adora was allowed free reign of her house from early mornings to mid-afternoons for as long as her firm was on vacation.

After that, though? When they would have to go back to switching off the car, sharing rides to and from work? When the precious little time Adora spent at home she would have to spend holed up in her bedroom? The end of her two-week break loomed over her like a black cloud.

“Why don’t you just kick her out?” Glimmer demanded on the Friday night after the New Year, as they lounged around Glimmer and Bow’s living room, surrounded by leftover Christmas decorations that they’d yet to stow away.

Since Adora and Glimmer’s own argument the day after Thanksgiving, Glimmer had really been quite good about keeping her disapproval to herself. When Adora told them that Catra had moved in, Glimmer had nodded with a smile (albeit, a tight one). When Adora regaled them with stories of Catra’s many roommate faux pas, Glimmer chuckled halfheartedly but otherwise kept her mouth shut. But two glasses of wine into the evening, and upon hearing about what Catra had said to Adora the day of her last prenatal visit, Glimmer had apparently reached her limit.

Adora heaved a great sigh, swirling her own glass absentmindedly in her hand. “I can’t do that. I practically begged her to stay in the first place.”

“Not to mention,” Bow added, “that that could really throw a whole wrench in the whole you-want-her-to-give-you-a-baby situation.”

Adora deflated a bit. “Yeah, that, too.”

Levelling Adora with a sympathetic but searching gaze, Bow asked, “Have you guys tried talking about it at all? Like, even once?”

“No,” Adora said sharply.

“Why not?”

“Bow!” Glimmer whined. “Catra practically threw Adora’s infertility in her face! That’s not okay!”

“I’m not saying it is!” Bow defended, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’m just asking, you know, did Catra _know_ you were—you know. Reproductively challenged?”

“She should’ve figured, don’t you think?” Adora said into her glass as she took a nip of wine.

“Probably,” Bow admitted. “But have you ever talked about that with her before? Like, explicitly?”

Adora thought about it. The honest answer was, no, she hadn’t. But Adora just said again, “She should’ve figured.”

Bow pursed his lips. “Maybe she thought you cared too much about your body. I mean, you do go to the gym every single day. Sometimes twice! And—” He sat upright, getting excited by playing what-ifs. “—she knows all about that case you did last summer, and she knows you’ve got money to burn. Rich and famous people use surrogates all the time. Maybe she thought it was that kind of situation.”

“I’m not famous,” Adora said with a roll of her eyes. “And I’m not rich. I’m. . . comfortable.”

“That’s what rich people say,” Bow quipped.

“I’m not _rich!”_ Adora said flatly. “Not, like, Micah-level rich.”

Glimmer hummed appreciatively as she poured herself another glass of wine. “Few people are.”

“Plus, even if I was,” Adora continued, “I wouldn’t do that. If I could have a baby on my own, I would’ve.”

Bow tilted his head to one side with a sad smile. “Yeah, but maybe Catra didn’t know that.”

“Whose side are you on here?” Glimmer accused, staring at Bow with suspicious, narrowed eyes.

“Adora’s, always,” Bow said. Turning back to Adora, he added, “Based on what you’ve said, though, she doesn’t seem like the type to want to have to rely on people. I just want to know—if Catra really thought poorly of you, or didn’t want you breathing down her neck anymore, or _whatever_ —why is she still there?”

“Because she’s a leech,” Glimmer muttered.

“ _Or_ , alternatively, she feels bad and doesn’t know how to apologize.” Bow shook his head. “All I’m saying, Adora, is that she could’ve left already. If you want any prayer of getting back to some level of normalcy, at least _try_ talking to her, okay?”

  
  


Adora thought of Bow’s words as she got into her car later that night. She especially thought of his words when she located her phone wedged in the crack between seat bottom and seat back. It had escaped her notice entirely that she’d been without it for the last few hours. But, upon settling into her own seat and checking her notifications, she discovered one missed call and a text, both from Catra.

The call went without a voicemail. The text read, _Call me when you can._

Pulling away from Glimmer and Bow’s house, Adora tried calling Catra back and received no answer.

“That’s weird,” Adora mumbled to herself, ending the call before being prompted to leave a voicemail. But, weirdly, she didn’t feel worried, as she figured it couldn’t be an emergency. The text was too casual, the single phone call too few. Instead, she wondered whether Catra, through some coincidental and cosmic turn of events, had decided independently that she and Adora needed to talk at the same time Bow had been attempting to impart some of his expansive emotional wisdom on Adora. And besides, she was no more than a ten-minute drive away.

Adora’s lack of concern, however, came screeching to a halt almost as soon as she stepped through the threshold of her home.

“Adora?” came Catra’s voice from somewhere deeper in the house. It had been a long enough time since Adora last heard it properly that she didn’t immediately notice that it sounded different.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Adora called back. “Sorry I missed your call, I left my phone in my car.”

Catra rounded the corner from the hallway, and it was then that Adora went on high alert.

“What’s wrong?” Adora asked, freezing where she stood as her stomach attempted to crawl up and out of her throat.

Catra, whose face was pale and whose clothes were haphazardly paired—a leather jacket over a loose t-shirt, flannel pajama pants, flip flops—just stood there for a second, looking quite as shaken as Adora felt. Then she said, surprisingly steadily, “I’m bleeding.”

There was the briefest of pauses. And then Adora reached back to wrench the front door open once more. “Get in the car,” Adora said, ushering for Catra to join her with an outstretched hand. “Come on. We’re going to the hospital.”


	5. Fourth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adora learns of at least one life-altering change.

Although the drive from the hospital only took twelve minutes—which was especially fast by most standards, as the drive should’ve taken seventeen—it might as well have taken hours for as much damage as it did to Adora mental and emotional wellbeing. She floored it, praying hard that she would not pass any cops itching to meet their monthly ticket quota so soon after the New Year. Catra, meanwhile, was completely silent, staring wordlessly out the window at the world that they passed, her hand limp in her lap, fingers a centimeter away from her stomach.

When Adora pulled through the emergency-room driveway, she stopped the car long enough to ask, “Are you okay to get yourself checked in?”

Catra nodded, eyes still pointed out the window at the automatic sliding doors.

“Okay, go do that.”

Catra turned her head then and, in a voice much smaller than Adora had ever heard come from her, she asked, “Aren’t you coming?”

“Of course,” Adora answered, eyebrows knitted together. “I just have to park the car, and I don’t want to waste any time. I’ll catch up.”

Slowly, Catra nodded again. And then she was out of the car. Adora watched her go through the front doors (looking very much like she was in a daze of some kind, which freaked Adora out to no end) before she slammed on the gas pedal once more to find the parking garage and sprint back to the emergency-room check-in desk in record time.

Much to Adora’s chagrin, Catra was still checking in and not already back being seen. Why was she not back being seen?

“How have they not let you back, yet?” Adora half-whispered into Catra’s ear as she joined her at the counter.

Catra blinked at her, like she was trying to figure out who she was. “I’m still checking in.”

Turning on the poor soul who had the unlucky task of manning the front desk that evening, Adora said, “Excuse me.” She hooked her thumb at Catra. “She’s pregnant and needs immediate medical attention. We need to get into an exam room. Now.”

The woman in front of her rolled her eyes—or, at least, the eye that they could see, as the other was hidden behind an eye patch. “I’m sorry, she needs to fill out the patient-information forms.”

“She can do that in an exam room,” Adora replied curtly.

Concentrating on Catra, the woman continued, unabashed, “I also need to pull up whatever prenatal records your doctor has sent.”

“You can do that while she’s in an exam room!”

“Ma’am, please, I need you to—”

“ _No,_ ” Adora said, mustering her lawyer voice and slamming her fist on the counter. “ _I_ need _you_ to listen to _me_. There is—” She gestured behind her. “— _nobody_ in this waiting room. So I know you have a room open. There are—” She gestured over the woman’s shoulder. “— _four_ nurses back there drinking coffee and shooting the shit. So I know one of them is available to bring whatever asinine information you need back to you here. And this last part I’m only going to say one more time. _She_ —” She gestured to Catra again. “—is _pregnant_ and needs _immediate. Medical. Attention._ Now, do you want to make her wait longer to be seen and risk my suing the _fuck_ out of this place and naming _you_ —” Adora pointed in the woman’s face. “—as a defendant? Or would you rather show us back?”

There was a long pause as the woman gaped at Adora before she said, “You—You’re that lawyer. The one that was on the news.”

Smirking, Adora nodded. “I am. So you know I’m not bluffing.”

Another long pause. Then, “All I need is her name. I’ll page a nurse right now to take you back.”

“It’s Catra Toussaint,” Adora said. “And yours?”

“Uh,” the woman said, looking very much like she’d like to wipe the sweat off her brow. “Octavia.”

“Octavia,” Adora repeated, and gave her a sweet smile. “Thank you. She’ll be in a bed in no fewer than five minutes.” Her smile dropped. “Right?”

Catra was in a bed in two. Only when she was, and only after Octavia had closed the door behind her with a rushed, “The doctor will be in with you soon,” was Adora able to slump into an easy chair in the corner of the room and release the breath she’d been holding since they left home. Cradling her forehead in her hands, she counted the seconds she spent inhaling (four), holding it (seven), and exhaling again (eight)—anything to distract her from the much, much worse things she could be thinking about.

“You okay?”

Adora’s head snapped up so rapidly that she gave herself a crick in the neck. Massaging it, she furrowed her brow at Catra. “Am _I_ okay? Are you asking me if _I’m_ okay?”

“Uh,” Catra said, glancing to the side and back. “Yeah. Are you?”

Adora stood from her chair and took two steps to stand by Catra’s side. “Are _you?_ Do you—Do you feel faint? Or nauseous? Can I get you anything? Water, or—or—”

“I’m fine.” Catra shrugged a little, then frowned. “I _feel_ fine, I mean. Physically. Just—I dunno. Kind of crampy.”

“Okay. . .” Adora sat at the edge of Catra’s bed. “How long has this been going on?”

Catra began chewing on her lip. “This morning.”

“ _This morning?_ ” Adora repeated. When Catra flinched a bit, Adora made her voice softer. “You should have told me before I left. I never would have—”

“I didn’t know,” Catra interrupted. “It didn’t really _start_ start until after you left. I tried to call—”

“I’m so sorry about that.”

Catra scoffed (less fervently than she usually did, but still). “It’s not a big deal.”

Eyes wide, Adora urged, “It’s a _huge_ deal. If I’d—”

“You didn’t know—”

There were two light knocks on the door before it swung open, admitting a statuesque, bald woman who pushed a small cart with a laptop on it. “Am I interrupting?” she asked.

“No, no,” Adora said as she slid off Catra’s bed to her feet. “Are you the doctor?”

“I am,” the woman said. “You may call me Light Hope.”

“Light Hope.” Adora nodded. “Thank you for getting back here so fast.”

“It is not a problem,” Light Hope said, wheeling the cart to Catra’s side. “I apologize on behalf of the front-desk staff, although it seems that you scared them quite a bit more than I would have been able to.”

Adora gave an embarrassed kind of grin. “I’m sorry about that. I was—” She looked to Catra, who was looking right back at her.

Light Hope held a hand out in front of herself in a placating gesture. “No matter.” She turned to Catra. “I take it you are my patient.”

“Uh. Yep,” Catra replied stiffly.

Pulling up a stool, Light Hope opened her laptop and began taking notes. “Now, I could not find any information under your name. During one of your prenatal visits, did you indicate this hospital as the one at which you intend to deliver?”

Catra looked to Adora. “Did I?”

“Yeah,” Adora said. Clearing her throat, she said, “Yes, this is the one.”

Light Hope nodded and typed. “What is your OB-GYN’s name?”

“Hordak,” Catra answered.

Light Hope nodded again, and scrolled through whatever files she was scrolling through. “Here you are. My front desk had your maiden name, but your file is under your married name. Catra Stevenson, now, correct?”

Catra and Adora looked at each other once more and seemed to decide together, without words, that it was not worth correcting. “Yeah, that’s me,” Catra said, shifting somewhat uncomfortably.

“You are over thirteen weeks along, then?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Light Hope typed even more, then scooted a bit back and looked directly to Catra. “Now, what seems to be the problem?”

“Uh—” She cast a nervous glance at Adora. “I started, um, bleeding? This morning. And it’s—it’s still happening.”

Light Hope asked, her fingers on her chin, “The bleeding, was its flow more typical of spotting, or was it more akin to your regular period?”

“In between? I think?” Catra exhaled a shaky breath. “It was lighter this morning and got—got a little heavier a few hours ago.”

“Is the volume so much that you need to use menstrual products?”

“Um,” Catra said, her cheeks becoming inflamed with pink. “Toilet paper?”

Light Hope hummed. “But, under regular circumstances, if you believed the bleeding was related to your normal period, would you use a tampon, for example?”

“Jesus,” Catra whispered, just loud enough for Adora to hear.

“Do you—” Adora cut in, taking a hesitant step toward the door. “Do you want me to step out while you’re—uh—”

“No, it’s fine,” Catra replied, although she did so from under her hands, as she’d dropped her head into them. Coming back up, Catra answered, “No, it’s not heavy enough that I would use a tampon.”

Light Hope pursed her lips thoughtfully, and then stood to cross the room. Picking up a phone from the wall, she dialed quickly and waited. “Good evening, this is Doctor Gorrondona. Could you please send an ultrasound technician to room eleven-thirteen for a sonogram?” A brief pause, then, “Yes, the portable. Thank you.” When she hung up, Light Hope turned back to the pair and said, “My initial impression is that there is not likely a reason to be concerned. Vaginal bleeding, especially in the first and early second trimesters, is not uncommon, and usually results in perfectly healthy pregnancies. In an abundance of caution, however, I am going to run some tests.” She pulled a thermometer from her mobile cart, popped a plastic sleeve onto it, and approached Catra. “Lift your tongue up, please.”

Catra did as instructed, looking sour as Light Hope pushed the thermometer—perhaps a bit roughly—into her mouth. “Ow,” Catra muttered around it.

“My apologies,” Light Hope said absentmindedly as she watched the thermometer’s display. She pulled it from Catra’s mouth with a satisfied, “Ninety-eight point six. Perfect temperature. No fever.” She sat again upon her stool and went back to typing notes. “Any chills?”

“No,” Catra answered.

“Severe abdominal or back pain?”

“No. Just, like, light cramps.”

“Irregular vaginal discharge, particularly with a foul odor?”

“ _Jesus,_ ” Catra said again with a grimace. “No.”

The door opened again and, this time, the oldest woman Adora had ever seen came through it, pushing a machine much larger than she should have been able to push.

“Ms. Stevenson,” Light Hope said, looking to Catra as she gestured to the woman. “This is our ultrasound technician.”

“Razz, dearie,” the ultrasound technician announced as she stopped her cart at the opposite side of Catra’s bed. “Call me Razz. Now—” She patted the pillow behind Catra. “—lay back.”

“Okay,” Catra said, and she shifted so that her feet were on the bed and her head was on the pillow.

Without preamble, Razz moved Catra’s jacket away and pulled her t-shirt up to her ribcage. Adora looked to Catra’s small bump, and felt the sudden urge to cry a little. She held it back, though, as Razz squeezed a dollop of gel below Catra’s belly button. Catra, as she usually did, winced—but at least held back from cursing at Razz, like she usually did at Entrapta.

“If you’re scared, dearie,” Razz said, pushing at the bump lightly with her probe and obviously misreading Catra’s wince, “your wife can come up and hold your hand.”

“Oh,” Catra said, eyes flitting to Adora and back. “That’s not—”

“Nonsense,” Razz quipped. Waving Adora over with her free hand, she beckoned, “You. What’s your name?”

Adora stuttered. “My—my—?”

“Mara, did you say?”

“No, sorry. It’s—”

“Mara, come here and hold your wife’s hand now.” Razz beckoned more emphatically. “Come, come!”

Left with no other choice, Adora did as she was told and stepped forward to scoop Catra’s hand from where it rested on the mattress. “Sorry,” she said quietly under her breath as she wrapped her fingers around Catra’s. They weren’t interlaced, but it was an intimate-enough encounter that Adora couldn’t force herself to meet Catra’s eyes, focusing instead on the skin of her hands, which was soft and maybe a little cold.

Catra didn’t reply, and Adora couldn’t see her face to gauge what she thought about all of that.

“Here we are,” Razz said finally. “Ah, look at them, they’re awake.”

Adora’s eyes snapped up to the screen. On it, she saw them, exponentially bigger than last time and with discernible features, even on the grainy picture. A head, a body, and legs and arms that stretched out before curling back in.

“Oh, my god,” Adora said reverently.

“Holy shit,” Catra said, and it was at that moment that Adora realized she was staring at the screen, too. “That looks like a real baby.”

Razz laughed. “It _is_ a real baby, silly thing.”

The baby on the screen stuck one arm out again and moved it to the side.

“Holy _shit,_ ” Catra repeated. “Is it. . . Are they _waving?_ ”

“Stretching, I think,” Adora replied, grinning like a fool in spite of the knot of worry still present in her stomach. “Can you feel that at all?”

“No,” Catra said, shaking her head a bit.

“You will soon, dearie,” Razz crooned. “Don’t you worry.”

Light Hope stepped up to the screen then and stared at it with narrowed eyes. After a second, though, her eyes relaxed, and she said, “As I suspected. You have a subchorionic hemorrhage.”

A spike of anxiety shot up Adora’s spine. “What does that mean?” Adora asked. “Is Catra okay? Is—is the baby okay?”

Light Hope nodded, and a relief so intense rushed through Adora that she had to perch herself again at the edge of Catra’s bed or else risk falling to her knees.

“In essence, it is a pocket of blood that has formed between the placenta and the uterine wall,” Light Hope explained, tapping her finger on the screen. Only then did Adora notice the dark shape next to the other dark shape that Entrapta had once identified as the amniotic sac. Light Hope continued, “Exact causes for subchorionic hemorrhages are unknown, although it is believed they are more common when assisted reproductive technologies are used to conceive. However—” Light Hope moved back to her laptop to type with the ghost of a smile on her face. “—they do not require treatment and usually resolve on their own.”

“So, they’ll be okay?” Catra asked—before she could stop herself, it seems, as she snapped her mouth closed with a _click_ of her teeth as soon as the question was out.

“They’ll be okay,” Light Hope confirmed. “Rest in the coming week, take time off of work if you can. Monitor your bleeding carefully for as long as it lasts. If it becomes heavier, or if other symptoms worsen or new ones appear, call your doctor or return here. Otherwise—” She closed her laptop and stood. “—they will check you out downstairs and, after that, you are free to go home. Do you have any questions?”

“No,” Adora sighed gratefully. To Catra, she asked, “You?”

Catra shook her head.

“Yeah, no, then,” Adora said to Light Hope. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” Light Hope said.

Razz, meanwhile, removed the probe from Catra’s midsection and handed her some disposable wipes. As she packed up, she said, “Congratulations, dearies. You make a beautiful family.” And before Adora could say anything, Razz patted Catra fondly on the shoulder and followed Light Hope out the door into the hallway.

As soon as they were gone, Adora’s upper body collapsed so that she was bent over the bed with one foot on the floor. Her hands—and consequently, Catra’s hand, to which she was still clinging—were trapped under her sternum as she laughed, completely out of her mind.

“Is your brain broken?” Catra asked, although without much heat to it. Looking up, Adora saw that Catra was smirking weakly at her, one eyebrow raised.

“Probably,” Adora said, beaming. “I’m just. . . _so_ relieved.”

Catra, who diverted her attention to wiping the goop off her stomach one-handed, said, “Well. Sorry you’re out the cost of the ER visit.”

Adora chuckled. “It doesn’t matter.” She sat back up and, before she could overthink it, gave Catra’s hand a good squeeze. “I’m sorry.”

Catra stopped wiping her stomach and gaped at Adora. “What? Why are _you_ sorry?”

“About the last couple of weeks. And before.” Adora heaved a great sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“Eh,” Catra said, sitting upright and gazing down at her own lap. “I guess I’m not entirely blameless. I mean—sorry—” She blew a stray piece of hair from her face. “I suck at apologies. I don’t. . . do them often. Or, ever. But—”

“It’s okay,” Adora said, squeezing Catra’s hand again. “I know what you mean. It’s okay.” She paused for the briefest of seconds before she released Catra’s hand and leaned forward, wrapping her arms around and up Catra’s back and hooking her chin over Catra’s shoulder.

Catra froze. And then she relaxed, moving her own arms to wrap around Adora’s shoulders. They sat like that for an indeterminable while before Catra mumbled so softly that Adora might not have heard her if her mouth wasn’t right next to her ear, “I’m glad they’re okay.”

“Me, too.” Adora pulled back just enough to hold Catra at arm’s length. “I’m glad _you’re_ okay.”

Catra didn’t say anything, she just looked down and smiled a smile that Adora didn’t think she’d seen before. It was soft, and warm, and—

 _Beautiful_ , Adora thought. Upon thinking it, though, she pulled her hands away and stood up. “Let’s—uh. Let’s go home. Yeah?”

Catra nodded, putting her smile away and exchanging it for her smirk instead. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go home.”

  
  


When Adora was pulling the car into her neighborhood, she slapped the steering wheel. “Darn it!” she exclaimed.

Catra startled, as they had been enjoying a comfortable silence up to that point. “ _What_?”

“The sonogram!” Adora exclaimed. “I should’ve asked for a picture or a video or something!”

Catra stared at her incredulously for a second, and then laughed her horrible, perfect laugh. Adora’s cheeks warmed. It had been a while since she heard that laugh. She missed it.

“Are you serious?” Catra asked, still laughing. “There’s a _blood bubble_ in there. That is not cute enough to warrant documentation.”

“Yeah, but,” Adora said, pouting a little, “they were awake! And _moving!_ And they actually look like something other than a peanut. Blood bubble aside, that’s, like, pretty cool.”

Catra hummed and propped her chin on her hand against the window. “Yeah, it was.”

They pulled into the driveway and, as they lifted themselves out of the car, Adora asked, “Does me talking about baby stuff bother you?”

Catra frowned. “No? Why?”

Shrugging, Adora waited at the top of the driveway for Catra to reach her. “I just mean, like, would you rather I didn’t? I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Catra stopped where Adora was and asked, “Like I’m going to get too attached to the thing?”

“I don’t mind if you get attached,” Adora said without thinking.

Narrowing her eyes, Catra pressed, “Shouldn’t you? Like, aren’t you worried I’m gonna get a rush of _mommy_ feelings and run off into the night without another word?”

Pursing her lips thoughtfully, Adora considered that that idea bothered her—but not just for the fact that it would mean she would be without a kid come July. Instead of addressing that, though, she asked, “If you do, would you at least leave Melog behind?”

Catra visibly relaxed, and chuckled. “That sounds like a shitty trade-off, seeing as how she definitely doesn’t like you.” She began to step around Adora, but Adora stopped her with the lightest brush of her fingers against her elbow.

“We don’t have to talk about this right this second,” Adora said quietly. “But. . . I don’t know. If you wanted, I wouldn’t be opposed to you coming around after the baby’s born. You know, seeing them every once in a while.” _And me,_ she added mentally.

Catra smiled kind of sadly at that. “I don’t think that’d be good for any of us. Do you?”

Adora didn’t answer. Together, silently, they rounded the corner that hid Adora’s front step behind the garage.

And were greeted by an absolute _unit_ of a woman pacing back and forth in front of Adora’s door.

“Uh—” Adora said, having no other words in her arsenal that would be of any help in that situation.

Catra stopped dead in her tracks. “Scorpia?”

The woman—Scorpia—stopped pacing and turned on her heel. Seeing Catra, she cried out, “Oh, thank _god,_ ” before rushing forward to scoop Catra into a spinning hug.

“ _Let me go, Scorpia!_ ” Catra yelled.

“I was _so worried!_ ” Scorpia wept, no longer spinning but still holding Catra off her feet in a crushing embrace. “I got here, and _you_ weren’t here, and I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t know where you were! I tried calling you, and texting you! I was about to call the police, but I was worried you’d be mad because of that one time you were late to work and I thought you were dead—”

“Uh, Scorpia!” a voice behind her said, and Entrapta was revealed, previously hidden behind one of the stucco pillars. She wrung her hands nervously as she continued, “I can’t tell you why, but you need to put Catra down now. Okay?”

“You called Entrapta?” Catra accused, glaring down at Scorpia from her still-elevated height.

“She was already with me.” Scorpia replied. “But I would’ve called her anyway! She’s a _doctor!_ You said you needed to go to the _hospital!_ ”

“Technically,” Entrapta said, “I’m still in school and can’t perform medical procedures unless I’m under the supervision of a license physician.”

Scorpia plundered on, unaffected. “And, by the way—” Her eyebrows furrowed as she put on the best puppy-dog expression Adora had ever seen on a real-life person. “What is with all this _secrecy?_ You tell me you need me to take you to the hospital, but you won’t tell me _why._ Entrapta has been acting all fidgety—”

“More than normal?” Catra grumbled under her breath.

“—but _she_ won’t tell me why. When I told her about what was going on with you, she just said, _Who’s Catra?_ So I _know_ she knows what’s going on!”

“Sorry, Catra!” Entrapta called, cringing deeply. “I promised I wouldn’t say anything, but you _know_ I’m a poor liar—”

“We’re best friends,” Scorpia pushed on. “You don’t keep secrets from friends!”

“Scorpia,” Catra seethed. “Put me down.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on!”

“ _Scorpia!_ ”

“Enough!” Adora said finally, stepping forward. “Either you guys stop yelling, or we take this conversation inside before somebody calls the cops. Preferably both! And _you_.” She pointed into Scorpia’s face. “You need to put her down— _gently_. Right. Now.”

Scorpia, obviously noticing Adora for the first time, just blinked at her. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“ _Put her down!”_ Adora yelled, and Scorpia jumped and did as instructed.

“Jeez, Louise! Okay, okay.” Scorpia brushed nonexistent dust off of Catra’s shoulders, leaving her hands there as she sized Adora up. “Seriously, though, do I know you?” Turning to Catra, she asked, “Do _you_ know her?”

“She’s my—” Catra paused, seemed to chew on the answer for a second, and then continued, “Roommate. She’s my roommate.”

“ _Roommate?_ ” Scorpia repeated. “Did you move? Is—Is _this_ where you _live?_ I thought you were still with Shadow Weaver!”

“Well, I’m not,” Catra replied, rolling her shoulders roughly to get Scorpia to release her. Steepling her fingers in front of her face and sighing, she added, “I’ll tell you everything, okay, dummy? Just come inside.”

As soon as the door was shut behind them, Scorpia scanned the room and released a low whistle. “Wowie. Sweet digs, wildcat.”

“ _Mreow?_ ” announced Melog’s location across the house and, in record time, she was scampering through the room and wrapping herself around Scorpia’s legs, purring loudly.

“Are you kidding me?” Adora mumbled.

“Don’t take it personally,” Catra replied with a roll of her eyes. “She loves Scorpia more than anyone else on the planet. And I’m including me in that.”

Scorpia picked Melog up from the ground and rubbed her cheek against Melog’s head. “Hey, little buddy.”

Rolling her eyes, too, Adora said, “Okay, just—everybody go sit on the couch please. I’ll be in my room if—”

“You’re not staying to talk?” Entrapta interrupted, staring wide-eyed at Adora. “Don’t you think you’re integral to this conversation?”

“Uh. Am I?”

“Is she?” Scorpia asked as the hint of a scowl formed on her face.

“She is,” Catra said—surprising everybody, probably even herself. Turning to Adora, she dropped her voice and added, “You are.”

“Aw,” Adora said, unable to help herself as she placed her hand delicately on her collarbone. “I am?”

“Shut _up_ ,” Catra groaned. She grabbed Adora by the wrist and led her around the sectional, pushing her to sit before taking a seat next to her. Then—as Entrapta and Scorpia, Melog in tow, situated themselves on the opposite end of the couch—Catra propped her feet on the ottoman and leaned back with her arms crossed. “Okay. Scorpia, before I get into this, I need you to promise to stay cool, okay?”

“As a cucumber,” Scorpia replied casually as Melog curled into her lap. She pointed down at her. “I got my coolness cop right here. Ain’t nothing gonna make me sweat with her on the case!” She chuckled lamely and then put on a serious face. “Jokes aside, though, I am here to listen with open ears and an open heart. The floor is yours.”

Catra sighed harder than anyone had ever sighed in their life. She looked to Adora.

Adora could only shrug. “Bandaid. Just rip it off.”

Nodding solemnly, Catra closed her eyes, steeling herself. When she opened them, she spat out, “I’m pregnant.”

Scorpia blinked. Then, strangely, laughed. “You _kill_ me, wildcat,” she wheezed, wiping a tear from her eye. “ _Oof_ , good one! No, _really,_ though. What—”

She froze in the middle of her sentence, however, as Catra unzipped her jacket, pulled it aside, and pointed to her bump—which, from the angle at which she was sitting, was more obvious than Adora had ever seen it.

“ _What?”_ Scorpia hollered, launching to her feet and dropping Melog to the ground. Melog, with a parting hiss, took off running. But Adora barely had the time to feel smug about that before Scorpia had skid across the floor on her knees, huge hands on Catra’s stomach and face shocked and already streaming with tears. “Oh, my god! Oh, my _god!_ ”

“Oh, _my_ god!” Entrapta echoed, slumping back in her seat, her hands pulling down on her pigtails. “I did it! Catra, I did it! I kept a secret!”

Scorpia looked up at Catra, and blubbered, “You’re pregnant! Really, actually pregnant! How did this happen? Why did you—? I’m—I’m—” She gritted her teeth and spoke directly to Catra’s bump. “I’m going to be the best aunt in the world, I promise. You’ll see! I’m gonna take you to—to Disneyland or, or— _Europe!_ Anywhere you want! And I’ll—”

“See,” Catra deadpanned, gazing upward at the ceiling as Scorpia continued to proclaim the thousands of places she would take a child. “This is why I asked you to stay cool.”

Adora, meanwhile, was focusing all of her energy on not ripping Scorpia’s hands off of Catra’s stomach herself. But just, like, because of the baby. That was _her_ baby. It had nothing to do with Catra.

(Or, at least, that’s what Adora told herself.)

Catra beat her to the punch, prying Scorpia’s hands off of her and releasing them at once. “ _Scorpia_ , stop it, there’s no reason to get excited!”

“ _No reason to get excited?_ ” Scorpia repeated, aghast. “Catra, you’re creating _life_! You’re—You’re the real-life personification or Mother Earth! You’re—”

“Not keeping them,” Catra interrupted. “They’re not mine.”

“Not—” Scorpia stared at Catra, her face scrunched like Catra was a math problem she was trying to solve. Adora could tell the second Scorpia figured it out, though, as Scorpia rocketed to her feet. “You didn’t. You didn’t let Shadow Weaver—”

Catra automatically scowled at Shadow Weaver’s name. But she brushed it off pretty quickly and said, “I did.”

“What? Why?” Scorpia sat on the cushion on Catra’s other side and gazed at her with open and unmistakable concern. “I thought I talked you out of that years ago! Why now?”

At that, Catra actually looked a little guilty. “Uh, because you. . . didn’t? I signed up basically the day after I told you about it. It’s just that I wasn’t picked until now. Or, like, four months ago.” Catra shrugged. “But yeah.”

Scorpia frowned comically deep. “Catra, are you sure about this? Do you even know the person who’s supposed to—to _take_ your _child_ from you?”

“Uh, I mean,” Catra said, looking sideways at Adora as Adora looked sideways back at her. “Yeah?”

Scorpia sighed and rubbed her face with her hand. “Okay. I—ugh. Okay. I respect and accept that you’re an adult capable of making your own decisions,” she parroted directly from an after-school special, it seemed. “But can you—I dunno, can you tell me about them a little bit? You know I worry about you.”

Bumping her shoulder against Adora’s, Catra asked, “You wanna take the floor here, chief?”

“Oh! Uh—” The only thing Adora could think to do was to plaster a huge smile on her face that likely looked as unnatural as it felt. That, and raise her hand in the air in a lame wave. “Hey. Adora, here.”

Scorpia’s brow furrowed low over her eyes. She barely spared Adora a glance before she dipped her head close to Catra’s ear. “What’s your roommate got to do with this?”

“Oh, my god, Scorpia!” Catra moaned to the ceiling. “How thick _are_ you?”

With an embarrassed grin, Adora said, “I think what Catra means to say—”

“Oh, you’re speaking for her?” Scorpia said, reeling back a little with a sarcastic smile. Elbowing Catra’s bicep, she asked, “Catra, really, who _is_ this clown?”

“She’s the mom, you dumbass.”

Scorpia’s eyebrows shot upward, landing somewhere just shy of her platinum-silver hairline. “You’re not serious.”

Catra rolled her eyes in lieu of giving a real answer. “Lord, give me strength,” she mumbled low under her breath.

Scorpia fixed a clearly strained smile onto her own face as, staring anxiously at Adora, she whispered (much too loudly) to Catra, “Catra. An-cay e-way alk-tay about-ay is-thay in-ay ivate-pray?”

“Scorpia,” Catra said. “Adora’s fucking thirty, I think she can understand pig Latin.”

“Heh, yeah,” Adora sighed and, despite herself, pulled at the collar of her shirt in a dead giveaway that she did not, in fact, understand a word Scorpia had just said. “Totally.”

Catra rolled her eyes again, this time so hard that Adora was surprised they didn’t roll out entirely. “I’m surrounded by idiots.” Turning to Adora, she added, “Scorpia wants to talk to me in private.”

“Oh!” Adora got to her feet. “Of course. It’s your house, too. Just let me know if you need me, I guess? And—” Here, she hesitated before bending at the waist to hold her mouth close to Catra’s ear. “Just, like, take it easy, okay?” she whispered. “Remember what Light Hope said about resting and relaxing and. . . whatnot.”

As she pulled away, she saw a shadow of that smile from the hospital on Catra’s face. It was gone in the blink of an eye, however, as Catra smirked and said, “Got it, mom. Will do.”

With that, Adora walked away (carefully avoiding the death-glare kind of energy that was radiating from Scorpia in waves), out of the living room, down the hallway, and into her bedroom. She shut the door and, thoroughly exhausted, took a moment to press her forehead to the wood. Big breath in, big breath out. Adora was two seconds from pulling away when she heard bits of the conversation resuming in the living room.

“—bad idea?” came Scorpia’s voice, still discernible even through the muffle of the door.

Adora strained to hear Catra’s response, but couldn’t quite pick it up. She could hear her voice, low and quiet, but no distinct words.

“I agree with Catra!” Entrapta quite nearly shouted, clearly having no regard for the fact that Adora was just on the other side of the house. “Also, I think it’s probably good for the _baby_ to be where Adora lives while they’re still gestating! Not only because she’s obviously ensuring that Catra is cared for in a way that Catra is not well practiced in caring for herself—”

Catra’s voice interrupted but, again, it was just a mumble to Adora’s ears.

“Oh, was that offensive? My bad. But _anyway_ , it’ll _also_ help Adora and the baby bond pre-delivery. For example, once their ears are a bit more developed, they’ll be able to hear voices outside of the womb, and being able to hear Adora’s almost as frequently as they hear Catra’s will assist in their transition from birth mother to adoptive mother!”

Adora could only hear some of what Scorpia said in response. “But, Catra, do . . . just don’t want you . . . feelings . . .”

Catra said something very sternly. And then there was a long pause as it seemed like nobody said anything. Finally, softly enough that Adora couldn’t distinguish it, Scorpia replied. Then came Catra’s voice again, this time quite loud enough for Adora to catch at the end, “—not because she’s _hot!_ ”

Adora stepped away from the door, pushing off of it like something dangerous would burst through. She stood in the center of her bedroom for a minute, struck dumb.

Whatever Scorpia’s question had been, Catra did not deny that Adora was hot. So, by extension:

 _Catra thinks I’m hot,_ Adora thought, and a self-satisfied grin overtook her face against her own volition. _Nice._

  
  


Hours later, in the darkness of her bedroom, Adora awoke. She didn’t know why. She’d been in the middle of a dream that, as she tried to remember it, escaped her cognition like it was being sucked through a drain. And perhaps she was not yet actually awake, either, because Catra was there, her face only about a foot in front of Adora’s own. Without fully meaning to, Adora extended her hand to rest against Catra’s cheek, her fingers wide enough to cover the expanse between nose and jaw. The skin there was soft and warm. If she moved her hand an inch or two forward, she would be able to card through Catra’s thick, wild hair.

“Hey, Adora,” Catra whispered, smiling strangely. Adora could feel the smile spread through the muscles of Catra’s face—and it was that that caused Adora’s brain to finally roar to life. She realized that she was not, in fact, dreaming, and that she was, truly, caressing Catra’s face like she would a lover (if she had one).

“Oh, my god,” Adora groaned, withdrawing her hand and pressing it over her own eyes. “I was dreaming, or—something. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Catra said, her smile turning smug. “What were you dreaming about?”

“I dunno,” Adora said groggily, blinking a couple of extra times in an attempt to better make out Catra’s face in the dark. That answer, however, was perhaps not the most truthful; although she didn’t know for certain, she suspected that she wouldn’t have been so ready to touch Catra in such a creepy, intimate way if she had been dreaming about anything or anyone else. Instead of saying that, though, Adora asked, still sleepily, “You okay? S’going on?”

“I’m fine. I’m sorry to wake you up. I just—” Catra heaved a sigh. “I told Scorpia and Entrapta that they could crash here tonight. I wanted to make sure that was okay.”

Around a yawn, Adora replied, “What time is it?”

“Like, two, I think?”

“ _Jeez._ Yeah, that’s fine.” Adora could already feel herself beginning to nod off again. Maybe that’s why she was bold enough to ask, “Is one of them taking your room? Do you need to sleep here?”

Chuckling under her breath, Catra said, “Yeah, Adora, this is all a ploy to get between the sheets with you. _No_ , dummy, Scorpia’s taking the couch.”

Adora hummed in assent. “Next time, then,” she said cheekily.

Using the edge of Adora’s bed as leverage, Catra rose from where she’d been crouched on her knees. “Sure, but you’re gonna have to play harder than that to get me into bed,” she grunted as she stood. Then, after a short pause, she put her hand on Adora’s cheek and said jokingly, “G’night, _wifey._ ”

Adora resisted the urge to lean into Catra’s touch, instead batting her away. “Night,” she said back.

And, like a shadow, Catra moved silently out of Adora’s line of sight. In moments, Adora was asleep once more—this time, with a bit more store added to her dream bank.

  
  


Early the next morning, Adora stepped out of her bedroom wearing her workout clothes and having already brushed and retied her ponytail. She resisted the urge to check in on Catra in her bedroom—first of all, because sunlight had not even begun to bleed across the sky; second, because Catra needed her rest; and, third, because Adora was still half-convinced that their interaction in Adora’s bedroom _had_ actually been a dream, and Adora didn’t want to be the one to set the precedent of them visiting each other in their rooms mid-slumber.

Not that Catra should be setting that precedent either, of course. That would be. . .

 _Inappropriate_ was the word Adora eventually landed on, after careful consideration of several, much less acceptable options.

God, she needed some coffee. Or a cold shower. Adora figured, however, that the cold car ride to the gym would suffice, as the gym shorts and cropped sweatshirt that she wore would do little to protect her from the frigid January morning.

But upon stumbling onto Scorpia and Entrapta, awake and staring at her from the entryway, Adora found that perhaps that was more than quite enough to shake her brain into full wakefulness.

“Oh, hi,” Adora said, lamely, as she collected her gym bag from the hall closet. “You guys are up early. Couldn’t you sleep?”

“ _Couldn’t I sleep?_ ” Entrapta repeated, so loudly that Adora had the impulse to shush her or else risk waking Catra.

Scorpia did the job, though, when she put her finger to her lips and whispered, “Entrapta, remember what we talked about, about using our _Catra’s sleeping_ voices?”

“Oh!” Entrapta said, quite as loudly as before. But then she mimicked Scorpia’s gesture and returned a self-deprecating smile. Louder than Scorpia’s whisper, but still much softer than before, Entrapta said, “Sorry, Adora. To answer your question, I got the best sleep of my life! Forgive me, I stripped the bed to find the mattress tag, I just _had_ to get the brand name.”

“That’s okay,” Adora said. “I was gonna wash the sheets anyway. But why are you up, then?”

Entrapta cackled, which sounded more manic than usual with how hard she was trying to stay quiet. “Adora, I got _three hours_ of sleep!”

Entrapta’s proclamation hung in the air like Adora was supposed to understand what that meant. Again, Scorpia came to the rescue by explaining, “She sleeps about two per night, usually.”

“Oh,” Adora said, still confused, but grinning. “That’s great then, Entrapta, I’m glad to hear it. And—” She looked to Scorpia, her chest inexplicably feeling a bit tight with nerves as she did. “—and you, Scorpia? How’d you sleep?”

Scorpia put her hands on her hips, more than ever demonstrating the rippling muscles of her arms and shoulders. “Fine,” she said. “Thank you for asking.”

“Okay,” Adora replied, nodding for no reason she could think of. “Well, don’t feel like you have to rush out, or anything! I’m leaving for a little bit, but I have a pool! Although I guess you didn’t bring swimsuits—and also it’s, like, forty degrees outside. But there’s a TV. And—and, uh, board games? And—”

“Adora,” Entrapta interrupted kindly. “Thank you for your uncomfortable extension of hospitality. But I have to leave anyway, I need to feed Emily.”

“Her Tamagotchi,” Scorpia supplied without prompting.

“She gives me a sense of structure and encourages forming emotional attachments with others,” Entrapta said. “Or, that’s what my psychiatrist tells me.”

“And I have to get ready to open,” Scorpia said. “So I need to drive Entrapta home, get changed, and get downtown.”

“Where do you work?” Adora asked, genuinely interested.

Scorpia narrowed her eyes at her like she’d asked a highly offensive question. “The Fright Zone Cafe. I’m the manager.”

“Oh, I love that place!” Adora said. “So you’re Catra’s boss, then?”

“Boss second,” Scorpia answered curtly. “Best friend first.”

“All right,” Adora replied, using every ounce of her willpower not to tack on a sarcastic, _Good talk_. “Well, I’ll walk out with you guys.”

And they did, Adora carefully locking up behind them as Scorpia and Entrapta journeyed down the driveway and to the car parked at the end of the cul de sac. Despite the fact that the neighborhood was dark and it could be assumed that most of its residents were still wrapped tightly in their beds, Entrapta seemed to take being outside as her cue to restore her voice to full volume. “Text me if you guys need help, all right?” she shouted. “I know I’m still in school, technically, but with my input I probably could’ve saved you the trip last night!”

“Okay! Thanks!” Adora called back with a wave. With that, Adora threw her bag in the back of the car and, already shivering, slid onto the cold leather of the driver’s seat. She started the ignition and waited for the heat to kick on, thinking that she’d give Scorpia and Entrapta the opportunity to pull out of the cul de sac before she backed into it. Taking a second to exhale hot air into her fists, Adora pried her phone out of her hoodie pocket and started to type out a quick text to Catra: _Went to gym. Call if you need anything!_ As she pondered whether the exclamation point made her sound too desperate, though, she was torn from her silent contemplation by the sharp wrapping of knuckles against her window.

Whipping around in her seat, Adora saw that it was Scorpia, doubled over to be at Adora’s eye level.

Adora rolled the window down, and said, “Uh, yeah? What’s up?”

“I don’t like you.”

Adora blinked in surprise. “. . . I literally have no idea what I’m supposed to say here,” she said eventually.

Scorpia sighed. “I don’t like you. I don’t like your vibe, and I don’t like whatever weird hold you seem to have on Catra. I think this situation is _weird_ , okay?”

When Adora didn’t answer at first, Scorpia continued glaring at her expectantly. Adora could only blink again before she said, “Okay?”

“ _But_ ,” Scorpia snapped, as if Adora had interrupted her. “Catra is a grown-up. She seems to be happy here, and—for reasons completely unknown to me—she seems to trust you.”

Something in Adora’s chest swooped at Scorpia’s words. “That’s good,” Adora replied, smiling in spite of the terribly odd situation. “I want her to. Be happy, I mean. And trust me, too, I guess.”

Scorpia levelled her with a shrewd look before saying, quite grimly, “You better take care of her. Got it?”

“Yeah, sure,” Adora said. “Got it.” Then, taking a page out of Catra’s book, she gave Scorpia a little salute on top of it. Scorpia just rolled her eyes with a look that plainly said that she wasn’t the least bit impressed, but pushed herself away from Adora’s car without another word.

As she waited for Scorpia to get into her own car and drive away, Adora sat ramrod straight in her seat, hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, feeling very much like she’d just been pulled over by a police officer. Once Scorpia’s car was out of sight, Adora picked her phone back up and erased the text she’d had drafted to Catra. Instead, she typed: _On my way to the gym after a stern talking-to from your father. Very much looking forward to telling you all about it._ _Call if you need anything!_ Then, after only a moment’s hesitation, she added, _Sleep well, wifey._

  
  


It was with great effort that Adora forced herself to return to work the following Monday. Catra’s bleeding stopped entirely by midday Saturday (to which Catra reluctantly admitted with a raging blush under Adora’s questioning, and which she followed up with the threat to leave forever without another word if Adora even _thought_ of asking her about irregular, odorous vaginal discharge). But that didn’t stop Adora from worrying, and it made her anxious to leave the house. Going to the gym for two hours was one thing. Going to work for the whole day and, on some occasions, sitting in a courtroom with her phone turned off completely was another. In the event that she wasn’t preoccupied and could actually attend to her phone, Adora would pick it up, on average, once every three minutes to check for notifications. Maybe once a day she would actually find one from Catra, and even then it was usually a simple request for Adora to pick up something on her way home or a meme. No emergencies, certainly. But that came as no comfort.

As it was, for the week that Catra stayed home from work under doctor’s orders—and for the additional week that Catra was forced to stay home from work, this time under Scorpia’s orders—Adora would rush home every single day immediately at five o’clock, sometimes a bit earlier if she felt she could sneak away without being noticed. It was almost always to find Catra resting comfortably on the couch, Melog lounging over her knee. And it was only then that Adora could release the breath she’d been holding since she’d departed nine hours earlier.

The anxiety spiked again when Catra did return to work, and it was on the third day after Catra’s first day back that Glimmer made it clear that she’d had quite enough.

“Adora,” she whined in response to Adora turning down her offer to get drinks that night. “We haven’t seen you in _weeks_.”

“What do you mean?” Adora replied in surprise. Her foot tapped absentmindedly as she checked her watch. It was ten minutes to five, and Catra would be there to pick her up any minute. “I saw you all day today! And basically all day every day. We, like, _work_ together.”

“You know what I mean!” Glimmer snapped.

Bow nodded sagely. “She does have a point, Adora. We only see you between client meetings and hearings, and you’re distracted the whole time by either worrying about Catra or checking in on Catra. The last time we saw you, _really_ saw you, and got to hang out was that night Catra had to go to the hospital.”

“Well, that, like, really freaked me out,” Adora said. She shrugged and checked her watch again. “I just. . . want to be there for her if anything happens.”

“And for the baby,” Glimmer added, perhaps a bit pointedly, like it was meant as a reminder.

Adora dropped her hand into her lap. “Yeah, of course, for the baby.”

Glimmer and Bow exchanged a look that Adora didn’t have the time to even try to dissect before Bow asked, “Does she need you at home? Like, once you get there and see that she’s fine, what do you do?”

In truth, what Adora and Catra did at home was really rather unnoteworthy. They’d watch TV while they ate dinner. Or they’d play on their phones laying together on the sectional, and sometimes their heads would share a cushion. As uneventful as that sounded, though, Adora felt for some inexplicable reason like sharing the truth would be the wrong answer.

“I don’t know,” Adora said eventually. “I’ll get some work done at home. Go to the gym. Usual stuff.”

“Really,” Glimmer deadpanned.

“Yeah, really.”

“That’s funny. You mentioned just this morning that you feel like you’re falling behind on work,” Bow said far too casually.

“Uh. . . Ye—Yeah. That’s why I’m working from home. At night, I mean. A bit.”

“Mhm,” Glimmer hummed. “I haven’t gotten a notification that you’ve completed a workout recently either. I think last time was, what, two days ago? And you’re usually really good about logging those.”

“L—Like I said,” Adora said, forcing a chuckle. “Swamped with work. Yep.”

Glimmer and Bow exchanged yet another look.

“Okay, _what?_ ” Adora snapped.

“Nothing,” Glimmer answered with a shrug. “If you can’t come out with us, you can’t come out.”

“So, you’ll just be home all night, right?” Bow added, side-eyeing Adora.

“Yes,” Adora said, side-eyeing him right back.

“And you’re kind of busy, obviously,” Glimmer added.

“That I am,” Adora lied.

“Okay,” Bow said with a shrug.

“Then you won’t mind,” Glimmer cut in, “if we stop by with dinner.”

“Uh—” Adora said.

Bow crossed his arms. “We’ll be there for one hour. We’ll get dinner on the way to your place, and we’ll be out of your hair right after.”

“That way we can spend some time with you without you feeling like you’re missing anything at home. The time that you would’ve wasted cooking can instead be spent catching up with your friends, so it’s not like it’ll cut in to your super busy schedule. Plus,” Glimmer added, a mischievous grin crawling across her face, “we’ll finally get to meet the mother of your child. Just like you promised. Sound good?”

Five minutes later, as Adora ducked into the passenger seat of her car, the first words out of her mouth were, “I want to start this off by saying I am so sorry.”

Catra cringed automatically. “Oh, god, what did you do?”

“Glimmer and Bow are coming over for dinner,” Adora explained as Catra pulled them into traffic. “We’ve got, like, a half-hour head start, maybe.”

“Oh,” Catra said, frowning pensively. “Those are the ones that yelled at you the morning after I showed up.”

“Glimmer did, Bow doesn’t yell. But yeah, basically.”

“Should I go to Scorpia’s for a bit, then?” Catra asked. “She’s usually fine with me coming over on short notice. More than fine, actually. She gets kinda psyched.”

“No, uh,” Adora said with a grimace. “They. . . want to meet you. Have for a while.”

“Oh,” Catra said again, this time her eyes going kind of wide. “That’s. . . a lot.”

“Hence the _I am so sorry._ ”

Catra nodded like she was steeling herself. “Okay. All right. I will change.”

“You don’t have to change,” Adora said, scanning Catra’s outfit as she said it. Now that her bump was getting more visible, Catra had taken to wearing overstretched, hand-me-down-looking pullovers when she went to work (she was still in the hiding-it phase around coworkers and, as she reported, planned to stay in that phase for as long as she could manage). She was still wearing one, the one that was worn out so bad at the elbows that holes had opened up there. There was a stain across the middle that was, in all likelihood, probably spilled mayonnaise that she hadn’t properly mopped up but looked, in reality, much more vulgar than that. “You look great.”

Catra cast Adora a skeptical glance that was ruined a bit by the smile she was obviously fighting. “You’re such a liar. No. I’m gonna change and look presentable for your friends.”

“You really don’t have to try that hard with them.”

“Uh,” Catra said, rolling her eyes, “something tells me I do. Like the obvious fact that they already do not like me.”

“I wouldn’t say they don’t like you,” Adora replied with a pout. “They just don’t know you. They’ll like you plenty.”

Catra just snorted in lieu of an answer.

“They will.” Then, after a moment, Adora added, “I like you. That’ll be enough for them.”

Any trace of humor temporarily vanished from Catra’s face. “You like me?”

“Sure I do,” Adora said with a cock of her head. “What, don’t you like me?”

Catra hesitated, then smirked evilly. “No. You’re annoying. And you snore so loud I can hear it from my room.”

“Shut up.” Adora smiled unabashedly out the window. “You _so_ like me.”

“I do _not_ like you!”

“Uh huh. Sure.”

“I _don’t!_ ”

“No, I believe you.”

They bickered like that the rest of the way home and into the house. As Catra went back to her room to change, Adora grabbed her laptop from her bedroom and put it on the dining room table. She then pulled some papers from her bag and arranged them around the laptop before scribbling some nonsense on a legal pad and adding that for good measure. _There,_ she thought. _A rock-solid alibi._

Melog, who had hopped onto the other end of the table, stared at her judgmentally. “You zip your lid about this,” Adora threatened, pointing at her. Melog just yawned in response.

“Okay,” came Catra’s voice from down the hallway. “If I wear something that emphasizes the bump, will that help me, or will that just invite them to grope me without the benefit of brownie points?”

Adora laughed as she took a seat in front of her laptop, hoping to make the scene that more believable when Glimmer and Bow arrived. “They won’t grope you, they’re pretty good about respecting personal space the first time they meet a person, at least.”

“And next time?”

“No, yeah, they’ll definitely grope you.”

“Great,” Catra said, appearing in the dining room while still fidgeting with the neck of her shirt. “How’s this? Trying too hard or not trying hard enough?”

Adora looked up and, in doing so, had to make the conscious effort not to openly gape. Catra wore a red, off-the-shoulder top—the same one that she’d worn the first time they met in Shadow Weaver’s office. It looked so different there in Adora’s dining room, though, as Catra turned to the side to smooth the material over her abdomen.

For lack of anything better to say, Adora blurted out, “You look like you swallowed a softball.”

Immediately, Catra’s face pinched inward. “Hey, _fuck_ you,” she said.

“No!” Adora exclaimed, standing to her feet as she bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing. “No, I’m sorry, I just mean, like. . . _Look._ ” She gestured, hands splayed, to Catra’s stomach. “You can just really see them now, especially with how fit—I mean.” She cleared her throat. “That looks great. You look great.”

Eyes still narrowed, Catra replied, “You said that about the sweater, too, though. And I know you saw that stain.”

“Yeah.” Adora shrugged. “But I mean it this time.”

After a heavy pause, Catra laughed Adora’s favorite laugh. “You’re such an idiot,” she said around a chuckle, pressing a hand (most likely without fully meaning to) to the bottom of her stomach. For a moment, Adora’s own hand itched to do the same.

Before she could even dream of asking—assuming she ever would have worked up the nerve to—the doorbell rang and, like always, Melog disappeared without a trace.

Catra transferred her hand from her stomach to her hip. “Jesus. Showtime already.”

Adora, already halfway to the door, shot her an encouraging grin. “Don’t worry, okay? They’re gonna love you.” _I hope,_ Adora added, but only to herself in the privacy of her own head. With a mounting sense of dread, she opened the door.

“We brought dinner!” Bow singsonged, shaking two paper bags of food in the air.

“And wine!” Glimmer echoed, doing the same with two glass bottles.

“Honestly,” Adora said, pushing open the screen door for them and stepping back to allow them room to enter, “I’m just glad you rung the doorbell for once.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want to be rude,” Bow explained. “It’s not just you here anymore, after all. And speaking of. . .” He beamed at Catra, who remained frozen where she’d been when Adora had answered the door. “I’m Bow.” He placed the bags of food on the table and extended his hand toward Catra. “It’s awesome to finally meet you.”

“Catra,” she said, taking Bow’s hand and giving it one awkward pump. “And, yeah. You, too.”

“This is my wife, Glimmer,” he said, gesturing to her.

“Thank you for having us,” Glimmer said through gritted teeth that she obviously hoped could pass as a smile. She kept a tight hold on the wine bottles—Adora suspected because she wanted an excuse to not shake Catra’s hand.

“You didn’t give us much choice,” Adora muttered. Louder, and before Glimmer could say anything in response, she said, “So what’d you bring us?”

“We stopped by that sushi place downtown, that one you like,” Bow said, prying the wine bottles from Glimmer’s hands and walking towards the kitchen.

Glimmer nodded and pulled out a chair at the table. “We didn’t know what Catra would like, so we got that huge sashimi platter and, like, a thousand different rolls. We figured we could do sushi family-style.”

Catra smiled, quite as tightly as Glimmer had done, and said, “Sounds great. Thank you for dinner.”

“But guys,” Adora said, frowning. “Catra can’t eat sushi.”

“What?” Glimmer asked. “Are you allergic?”

“No, I’m not,” she answered. Then Catra looked sternly at Adora as she pulled out the chair across from Glimmer to sit. “Adora, I can eat sushi, it’s fine.”

“What are you talking about?” Adora asked. To Glimmer she said, “She can’t eat sushi, she’s _pregnant._ ”

Simultaneously, Glimmer and Bow stopped dead.

“Oh, my god,” Bow said, slapping his forehead.

From between where she’d faceplanted into her own hands, Glimmer groaned. “We’re so stupid!”

“No, it’s fine!” Catra insisted. “Seriously, one sushi dinner isn’t gonna kill me or—”

“And wine!” Bow shouted, turning to Glimmer and shaking one of the bottles in his fist. “We brought _sushi._ And _wine._ ”

Glimmer collapsed her upper body fully onto the table, burrowing her head under her arms. “Oh, my _god!_ What is _wrong_ with us?”

“I can’t believe what we’ve done!” Bow wailed, pressing his hands to his cheeks as he leant against the kitchen counter.

“We’re murderers! Attempted murders!”

Catra, meanwhile, looked beyond stunned. She stared from Glimmer to Bow to Adora, stopping at Adora long enough to shake her head in a very _what-the-hell-is-happening_ kind of gesture.

Adora, however, looked carefully between her two friends. They’d both hidden their faces, Glimmer’s under her arms and Bow’s in his hands. The corner of her own mouth twitched as she said, confidently, “You’re messing with us.”

There was a long, drawn-out pause before Glimmer and Bow popped back up, grinning wickedly. “We’re totally messing with you,” Bow confirmed.

Glimmer reached into the paper bags on the table and started pulling out boxes. “We got stuff from that gourmet mac and cheese place on campus.”

“And this is sparkling cider,” Bow said, bringing a bottle to the group, his other hand holding a stack of cups he’d pulled from Adora’s cupboard. “Don’t open this for a second, though,” he added thoughtfully. “I did shake it pretty good just now.”

Adora, catching Bow and Glimmer’s contagious grins, faltered only for a second as she looked to Catra, who was in the exact same state as she’d just seen her, eyes wide and terrified and confused. Then, all at once, Catra cracked, laughing that laugh and burying her face into her hands.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she gasped, tears streaming down her face.

“Did we get you?” Glimmer asked, her own smile much softer and more genuine than it had been before.

“Oh, my _god,_ ” Catra sighed, dragging her hands through her hair. “ _Jesus._ Fuck yeah, you got me.”

“Aw, yay!” Bow said, laughing as well. He placed the cider and cups on the table and accepted a few boxes from Glimmer to spread out. “Glimmer was worried that wouldn’t work. Adora knows our tells too well.”

“But we thought,” Glimmer said, making a quick trip to the kitchen for plates and silverware, “that this was going to be so insanely beyond awkward that it was at least worth a try to break the tension early.” Returning and handing Catra a plate, she said, “You’ll get used to us, I hope.”

Catra leaned back in her seat, clearly already exhausted. “God, me, too. Pro tip, though: heart attacks probably aren’t great for pregnant people, either.”

“Duly noted,” Bow said cheekily.

As she ate and enjoyed the company of those around her, Adora’s chest filled with warmth—so much warmth that she was surprised her dinner companions couldn’t see it bursting out of her. Although, there was a moment in the middle of their meal that she thought maybe Glimmer had. Adora had been looking at Catra right as Bow had made some dumb pun, and Catra had tipped back her head and laughed, and Adora was just thinking that she’d been hearing Catra laugh so much more recently and how thankful she was to hear it, especially after those dark few weeks the previous month. When she felt—as she had done semi-frequently in the last month—that she had better look away or else risk Catra catching her staring, she looked to Glimmer instead. Adora realized, then, that Glimmer had caught her staring, and her friend looked at her so strangely that Adora resigned herself to just focus on her food lest she get herself into an even more embarrassing situation.

The hour passed quickly, and when Adora had invited them to stay longer, Glimmer and Bow politely declined. “I think we’ve intruded enough for one night,” Glimmer explained, giving Bow a significant look, the meaning of which Adora could only dream of guessing, as was almost always the case with the silent way in which Glimmer and Bow were able to communicate.

Glimmer and Bow, over Adora’s protests, carried the plates and glasses to the dishwasher and packed away leftovers. On their way to the door, Bow stopped at Catra’s side to give her a hug. Catra hesitated, as she always did when presented with unprompted physical affection, but then returned it.

“It was really good to meet you,” Bow told her. He waggled his fingers at her tummy and said, “And you, too, li’l avocado.”

Catra flatted her hands over her stomach. “Avocado?” she asked.

“Yeah, sixteen weeks, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Then yep,” Bow confirmed with a nod. “They’re avocado-sized now.”

“Huh,” Catra grunted, then smiled. “That’s cute.”

Adora scoffed. “Oh, _that’s_ cute. But when I say you looked like you swallowed a softball. . .”

“He said it way nicer than you said it,” Catra explained with an eye roll.

“I don’t see the difference in the way we said it.”

Glimmer didn’t give Catra a hug, but she did smile and say, “They also have eyelashes. So, fun fact.”

“Fun fact,” Catra repeated. “I sure do know that now.”

Chuckling, Glimmer bid them good night, and led Bow out the door by his hand. Once the door was closed behind them, Adora leaned against it. “We did it,” she sighed.

“ _We_ did it?” Catra asked, pressing her hand to her chest. “Those are _your_ friends. _I_ did it.”

Adora rolled her eyes and pushed off the door. “Fine. _You_ did it. Happy?”

Catra nodded. “Very.”

For some unknowable reason, they both lingered there in silence, not quite staring at each other but neither making an effort to look away either.

After a minute, Catra shifted. “I’m gonna go get into pajamas. Then do you wanna. . . I don’t know. Watch something?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll change with you.” When Catra made a weird face at that, though, something between surprised and unsure, Adora rushed to correct herself. “Not that I’m, like, gonna watch you change. Or have _you_ watch _me_ change. I meant that I’m _also_ gonna—you know. Change. Into pajamas. In my own room.”

“Uh huh,” Catra said, smirking in a way that made Adora’s ears hot. “Sure.”

When Adora had shut herself in her bedroom, she belly-flopped onto her bed for a well-deserved moment of screaming into her pillow, complete with self-directed threats regarding getting her shit together and demands to know what exactly was wrong with her. She was interrupted quickly, however, by the _buzz_ of her phone in her back pocket. Reluctantly, Adora pulled it out and propped it in front of her to read a text from Glimmer.

_So what are you gonna do about the massive crush you have on your surrogate?_

After Adora took a second to gape at her phone, she wrote—and deleted—the following responses:

_I do not have a crush on Catra!_

_What are you talking about?_

_What do you mean?_

_Why do you think I have a crush on Catra?_

_Shut up!_

In the end, though, Adora just dropped her phone on the mattress and slid backwards away from it. Ignoring the text might not have been the best defense but, at the moment, Adora did not have the mental faculty to even try to address Glimmer’s allegation. She would text her back later. After watching TV with the girl that she purportedly had a crush on. As she stepped into sweatpants, Adora snorted out loud. A crush. On _Catra._ _Please._

Opening the door to her bedroom, however, Adora came face to face with the woman in question, whose arm was outstretched as if she was just reaching for the doorknob on her end.

“Catra?” Adora asked. “What—?”

Recovering from her obvious surprise that Adora would be coming through the door that same second, Catra wordlessly grabbed Adora’s hand and—as Adora’s heart leapt into her throat—pressed Adora’s palm to her baggy sweatshirt.

“Do you feel that?” Catra asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Do I feel what?” Adora asked in response.

“Oh, my _god,_ ” Catra sighed, rolling her eyes. She pushed Adora’s hand off of her, pulled her sweater up to her ribs, and pressed Adora’s hand to her stomach again—this time, skin to skin. “ _That._ Do you feel _that?_ ”

Adora could feel the soft, hot skin of Catra’s lower stomach, certainly. She could also feel the top of Catra’s pajama shorts, where Adora’s pinky had come to rest. Feeling that neither of those were an appropriate answer, however, Adora asked instead, “What am I supposed to be feeling?”

Catra blinked at her, astounded. And then she smiled. “They’re awake.”

Adora blinked back, twice actually, before her jaw dropped. “You can _feel_ them?”

Nodding, Catra said, “I think so. I don’t know what else that would be.”

“Oh, my god,” Adora said, moving her free hand to cup Catra’s bump on the other side. She waited, her heart thumping hard and fast against her chest. Then, biting her lip, she said, “I’m not—I’m not getting anything.”

“They’re right—” Catra took Adora’s hands between hers and shifted them a bit to the right. “—here.” Catra looked up into Adora’s face, her hands keeping a firm hold on Adora’s. “Anything?”

Adora met Catra’s stare, her mismatched eyes boring eagerly into hers. Adora hadn’t realized how much taller she was than Catra until they stood so close together. Adora swallowed, praying Catra wouldn’t hear it. “No. Nothing.” Then, softer, “What does it feel like?”

Catra’s grin widened. “I dunno. Like. . . butterflies, I guess.”

 _Butterflies._ Adora hoped it was a sympathy response that she noticed the exact same sensation Catra described—not under her hands, but in her own stomach.

  
  


_So what are you gonna do about the massive crush you have on your surrogate?_

Adora had no idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i broke my own rule and posted this chapter before the next was finished (my birthday gift to myself/you). for that reason, the next update will be especially slow to post. thank you for your patience in the meantime!


	6. Fifth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shadow Weaver returns. Also, Adora experiences an atypical Valentine's Day.

The second Saturday of February found Adora at her kitchen table, poring over the scant contract that she’d signed five months earlier.

“She charges a flat fee for everything,” Adora sighed into her phone, which was carefully balanced between her cheek and her shoulder, “but all of the service descriptions are pretty vague. Like, here, the engagement letter states that matching services are forty thousand on their own, but it doesn’t say what exactly is involved with matching services.”

“ _Is there anything there under the label of birth-mom expenses?_ ” Bow asked from his end of the line.

“Uh,” Adora answered, flipping a page forward. “Yeah. Fifty thousand. Like, obviously, that’s not true.”

“ _I don’t know,_ ” Bow sighed. “ _If that’s supposed to include medical procedures, counselling, and legal services, fifty thousand dollars doesn’t sound way too out there, you know?_ ”

Adora cradled her chin in her hand. “But does it? Does it actually cover that? It doesn’t say that.”

“ _That’s the thing. If it doesn’t explicitly say that those expenses are covered under any other label anywhere else, Shadow Weaver would just have to execute some kind of affidavit stating that that’s what’s covered under it._ ”

“What if Catra doesn’t actually use those? Like, what if she declines counselling and legal services?”

“ _It doesn’t matter,_ ” Bow answered. “ _It’s industry standard to charge a flat fee based on average cost of services rather than actual charges incurred. A judge wouldn’t blink twice at approving adoption expenses like those._ ”

Leaning back against her chair and carding one hand through her ponytail, Adora said, “Okay, so, assuming that a judge would approve the agency expenses, however exorbitant they might be—”

“ _Which they will,_ ” Bow cut in.

“What’s my next strategy, then? Just cut the agency loose and have Catra and I operate on a private agreement, or what?”

“ _No,_ ” Bow said. “ _Any agency with a modicum of sense will have some provision in there that payment is expected in full if the adoption takes place through any means. Probably for this exact reason. Plus, you know, Shadow Weaver is Catra’s mom. She’ll find out one way or another._ ”

“And if she does?” Adora asked.

“ _She sues you? Duh._ ”

“Ugh.” She dropped her head back to stare at the ceiling, moving one hand to keep her phone pressed to her face. “There has to be some defense to breaching a contract like this. Like unconscionability? Isn’t that one?”

“ _I don’t know. . ._ ” Bow said again in that tone that meant he knew Adora was wrong but didn’t want to say so outright. “ _Unconscionability would require you to be in a position of little to no bargaining power. There were other agencies you could’ve reasonably picked, and you’re an attorney yourself, so it’s not like you didn’t know what you were signing._ ”

“ _Fraud, then!_ ” Adora snapped, exasperated.

“ _What would be the misrepresentation of material fact? That Shadow Weaver was Catra’s mom? I don’t think that would’ve changed your decision, would it?_ ”

Adora bit her lip. No, it wouldn’t have. Especially now that Catra was there, and real, and carrying a baby that was also there and real. Instead of saying that, though, she just said, “Jesus, Bow, did you swallow our contracts textbook? How do you remember all this?”

Bow chuckled, the sound making a pleasant whoosh in Adora’s earpiece. “ _No, but I did like that class._ ”

“I didn’t,” Adora scoffed. “I got a B minus.”

“ _Do you want to ask Netossa to go over the engagement letter with you on Monday?_ ” Bow asked. “ _She is the resident expert, she’d probably be a lot more help than me._ ”

Adora rolled her eyes and smiled. “You’re plenty help, Bow, thank you. Plus I’d just be, like. . . I don’t know. Embarrassed.”

“ _There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,_ ” Bow assured her. “ _You didn’t know what Shadow Weaver was doing._ ”

“No, but now that I do, I feel like I need to do something about it.”

“ _Well. . ._ ” Bow sighed. “ _You could report her to the state licensing agency. It would probably take a while for that to actually get anywhere, so it might be too late to help Catra get the money she deserves, or to help you out of the rest of the money you owe._ ”

“But it’s better than nothing,” Adora finished for him with a nod. “No, you’re right. I’ll do that this week.”

“ _So,_ ” Bow said. “ _How is the little bell pepper doing?_ ”

Snorting, Adora asked, “Is that how big they are this week?”

“ _Yep,_ ” Bow confirmed. “ _And if Catra makes it to forty weeks, they’ll get to be pumpkin-sized._ ”

“Huh. I obviously hope they get to forty weeks, and also weirdly I don’t?”

“ _Why not?_ ”

“God, because Catra will be miserable.”

Bow laughed, but didn’t say anything more. Automatically, Adora’s body tensed, waiting for him to ask what Adora really, really didn’t want him to ask. Glimmer had asked weeks earlier, and Adora had ended up ignoring her text completely. Thankfully, Glimmer had taken that as her cue to shut up about the whole thing, because her lips had remained zipped about anything Catra-related in the time following.

Bow was different, though. Bow was generally good about respecting personal boundaries but, when there was a potential, super serious issue, he was not one to brush it off, either. Glimmer and Bow were married, so Adora was not naive enough to believe that Glimmer hadn’t told Bow what she texted Adora in a private chat. And what Glimmer accused Adora of having was a potential, super serious issue. Ergo, Adora did not trust that Bow was going to leave her alone about it.

More than anything else, though, she did not trust whatever her answer to Glimmer’s question would be.

It was Adora’s mistake, really, to offer Bow the segue into the conversation. But it was Adora’s saving grace that the very person in question wandered into the kitchen at the exact right moment—granting Adora the perfect excuse from both falling into the trap she’d laid for herself and, also, from having to try to lie.

Right as Bow had made an intake of breath, Adora cut in, “Hey, I’m gonna let you go. Catra’s up.”

“ _Oh—_ ”

“Love you, bye!” she tacked on before pressing End and dropping her phone face down on the table. Then Adora stood and moved to join Catra. “Good morning!” she greeted, leaning over the kitchen island to beam at the back of Catra’s head. “What’re you doing up so early?”

Catra swiveled around long enough to literally hiss at her, and then returned her attention to rifling through the cabinet and pulling out a bowl.

With a good-natured shake of her head, Adora pushed off the counter and rounded it to take the bowl from Catra’s hands. “Sit,” Adora ordered, pointing to her recently vacated seat. Without a fight, Catra did as instructed. “What do you want?”

Propping her head up with her hands, Catra mumbled, “Cereal.”

“Yogurt and fruit, you said?” Adora asked as she opened the fridge.

“No,” Catra whined, dropping her forehead onto the table. “I want Cocoa Puffs.”

“Well, we’re out. But—” Adora took a knife to start slicing berries at the same time she bumped the fridge closed with her hip. “—if you eat one bowl of yogurt and fruit, I will go to the store and buy you two more boxes of Cocoa Puffs. Deal?”

“Fine,” Catra groaned.

“All right,” Adora said around a grin. As she quartered strawberries, she snuck a glance at Catra, who was still sprawled across the kitchen table, face down. Her hair was tied back, but not neatly, as it was obvious that Catra hadn’t bothered to brush it by the way her ponytail sprung out of its tie every which direction. “What are you doing up so early, anyway?”

Catra grunted wordlessly, then flipped her cheek onto the table so her mouth was free to say, “They’re awake. So I’m awake.”

Adora’s hand stilled over the bowl of yogurt she was scooping at that moment. “You can really feel them now, huh?”

Catra nodded, and yawned, her eyes drifting closed.

Adora, with new pep in her step, dropped the berries into the yogurt, plucked a spoon from the drawer next to the stove, and walked around the counter to place the bowl in front of Catra’s face. “Breakfast,” she announced. “Now eat.”

“Okay,” Catra said doggedly, and propped herself back up on a single fist while her free hand shovelled food into her mouth.

Meanwhile, Adora sat beside her, pulling the contract and notepad she’d been working on into a neat stack on the other end of the table. “Are they still up? I mean, you know. Can you still feel them moving around?”

“Yeah, they’re jogging I think,” Catra grumbled. “Just like their mom. A get-up-at-the-ass-crack-of-dawn, exercise-loving pain in the neck.”

Adora smiled fondly at her. “Your liking me is showing.”

Catra sneered. “Shut up.”

“So tell me about it,” Adora pressed on. “What does it feel like? Still like a fluttering or is it—”

“Adora,” Catra interrupted. “If you want to feel my stomach, just ask to feel my stomach.”

“I—I was just—”

“Oh, my god, here.” Catra dropped her spoon, grabbed Adora by the wrist, and pulled her hand to her stomach, adjusting Adora’s fingers so that they pressed the bottom left of Catra’s bump, under her t-shirt and a few short inches away from her hip bone. “They’re right there, doing bicycles.”

Adora waited, trying to concentrate less on the hot skin under her fingertips and more on whatever feeling Catra was describing. Surely, Adora would at least be able to feel. . . something. A vibration, or a twitch, maybe.

“Still nothing?” Catra asked. When Adora looked up into her face, Catra frowned. “I can tell by the way you’re pouting.”

“I’m not pouting,” Adora replied, pouting. Reluctantly, she pulled her hand away. “But, yeah, still nothing.”

Catra hummed in a noncommittal way as she turned back to her breakfast. “Don’t sweat it. I read that you really can’t feel the baby from the outside until usually, like, twenty weeks. They’ll get there soon enough.”

The thrumming of some other feeling entirely picked up in Adora’s chest. “Did you. . . Are you reading up on baby stuff?”

Catra’s hand stilled mid-shovel. “No,” she said, a blush creeping onto her cheeks and highlighting her smattering of freckles.

“You are!” Adora gasped, a laugh bubbling up in her throat. “You so are, you’re reading up on baby stuff because you felt bad I couldn’t feel anything yet!”

“I am not!”

“Oh, my god!” Adora wiped a faux tear from her eye with the back of her hand. “I can’t believe you like me. That must be so embarrassing for you!”

Catra pointed her spoon in Adora’s face. “Shut up! I do not like you.”

Adora’s laughter tapered away as she leaned her cheek onto her hand. Still grinning like the idiot she was, she teased, “What else have you been reading up on? Baby names?”

Rolling her eyes, Catra said around a mouthful of fruit, “Isn’t that your job?”

“Yeah, but I’m always open to suggestions.”

“Okay. How about Dumbass Junior?”

Adora broke again, giggling down at her lap. As she did, Catra struggled with something that looked like what might’ve been a pleased smile.

“So what’s all that?” Catra asked, dipping her chin in the direction of the pile of paperwork. “You working from home today?”

With a great sigh, Adora replied, “No, I’m re-looking over the contract I signed with Shadow Weaver.” When Catra’s spoon dropped a bit, Adora rushed to explain, “Not trying to get out of what we’re doing! Just maybe trying to get out of paying Shadow Weaver any more money.” Or to get you more, she tacked on internally, suspecting that Catra’s pride might not take that news well.

Righting herself, Catra scoffed, “Good luck with that. Those things are airtight. She made sure of that.”

“Yeah, that’s what Bow was trying to tell me just now,” Adora said. “It just doesn’t seem fair, though—to either of us. I mean, Shadow Weaver is price-gouging me, taking home almost all of it, and leaving you to do all the work with almost nothing in return? I never would’ve agreed to all this if I knew that. Or, at least,” she added, a bit softer, “I wouldn’t have wanted her as the middleman.”

Catra smirked. “Oh, you’re fine with all the drama, as long as you’re not on the hook for paying for it? Right.”

“I’m fine with all the drama even if I do have to pay for it,” Adora corrected. “I would just rather Shadow Weaver didn’t get anything out of it.”

“Agreed.” With a big sigh of her own, Catra added, “I haven’t gotten my check from her in two months, actually.”

“What?” Adora’s brow slanted low over her eyes. “She hasn’t paid you in two months?”

“Not necessarily her fault—this time, at least. She would just bring them home to me, before. Now—” She shrugged. “She doesn’t know I’m here, I don’t think. I’m sure they’re at the office. I just need to go, you know. Pick them up.”

Adora frowned in sympathy. “Do you want me to go with you?”

Catra shook her head, laughing a mirthless laugh. “Nah, I’m a big girl, I can talk to my mommy on my own, thank you.”

“I know you can,” Adora replied. “I just—I’ll be there if you want me to be.”

Catra levelled Adora with a look that Adora didn’t fully understand. It spoke to some uncertainty, judging by Catra’s narrowed eyes. But it was something else, too. Before Adora could take the time to discern it, though, it was gone. “Thanks,” Catra said eventually. “But I’m okay. I’ll do it this week.”

“Okay,” Adora said.

“Okay.” Pushing her now-empty bowl away, Catra added, “I’m going to go back to sleep now. I’ll clean this later.”

“No, don’t worry, I got it. Did they fall asleep?”

“Who knows. They stopped beating the shit out of me, at least,” Catra chuckled wryly. As she stood, she stumbled a bit and grabbed the table for balance.

In a second, Adora was on her feet, hands gripping Catra’s shoulders to balance her. “Catra! Are you—?”

“I’m fine,” Catra said, half-annoyed and half-amused. “My center of gravity’s just a little off. Extra weight, you know?”

Adora, despite her worry, smirked. “Is that something else you read?”

“Stop,” Catra groaned as she brushed Adora’s hands off of her and stepped around her. “Cocoa Puffs, you hear me?”

“Cocoa Puffs,” Adora confirmed. She watched Catra walk away, watched Catra look back over her shoulder at her and stick out her tongue before disappearing down the hallway. And then Adora slumped back into her seat to will her racing heart to please, please, for the love of god, calm the fuck down.

The work week was difficult enough that Adora was already longing for her maternity leave on a visceral level by the time it was half done. On Monday, she sat through an all-day deposition of the regional manager of a shipping company accused of wrongful termination, during which she struggled to keep her lips clamped over a seemingly never-ending series of yawns. On Tuesday, she was in and out of court hearings and had to pop back into her office between almost every one, rendering the backs of her ankles raw from the stiff leather of her heels. On Wednesday, she attended phone call after phone call and was already halfway through the afternoon when she exited her office for the first time—particularly beleaguered after a two-hour conference with an opposing counsel—and dragged her feet to the reception area, where she collapsed into a white, leather chair with a groan.

“How did it go, my friend?” Sea Hawk asked, leaning across his desk.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Adora replied, “About as well as can be expected from a pompous ass like Lashor.”

Sea Hawk chuckled appreciatively. “So, not well at all, then.”

Adora snorted. “No, not really. No progress made. Still going to trial next month, most likely.” Dropping her hand into her lap, she asked, “Can I hang up here for a minute? I just cannot be in my office right now.”

“Hang away, dear Adora,” Sea Hawk declared. “Shall I entertain you with an epic yarn of my coming to metaphorical arms with our internet-service provider?”

“What’d they do this time?”

“Oh ho! You’ll see!” Sea Hawk pushed his rolly chair away from his computer a bit—most likely to give himself room to gesticulate wildly without breaking anything (again). “Now,” he said, clapping his hands together, “this tale begins with our monthly statement, which, under my careful eye, I realized had increased by approximately fifteen dollars without explanation.”

“My god,” Adora deadpanned.

“My thoughts precisely! So—” Sea Hawk mimed picking up his desk phone, his flourish in doing so perhaps only the slightest bit exaggerated compared to how he usually picked up his desk phone. “I telephoned the company at once! I faced no less than three robot answering devices! I was kept at bay by the siren sound of hold music for thirty minutes! But I persisted, and I forged my way to the front line—that is, an actual, human associate.” Slapping his hands onto his desk dramatically, he cried, “But I was foiled, distracted, by the arrival of the fair Catra!”

“Oh, Catra came by already?” Adora checked her watch and saw that it was already three o’clock. “Guess I didn’t realize it was so late.”

“Yes, well,” Sea Hawk said, deflating a bit. “Her timing could have been better. Just as she entered, a customer-service representative answered and I—caught off guard by Catra’s interruption—delayed too long in responding and, as a result, was placed on yet another harrowing hold!”

“Wait,” Adora said with a smirk. “How did Catra catch you off guard? I mean, hasn’t she come by every afternoon to pick up the keys for, what, over two months now?”

“It wasn’t her mere entrance,” Sea Hawk said with a shake of his head. “No, she asked me whether you were available!”

Adora blinked. “Did she? Did she say why?”

“She did not! I told her you were in a meeting, and she walked away without another word.”

“Huh,” is all Adora had to say to that. She checked her watch again—this time for notifications, a text or a call she had missed. There was nothing. In simpler times, Adora would not have thought this was any cause for panic. Recently, however, she’d learned that she couldn’t safely make such assumptions anymore. Catra could be unpredictable, but her asking to see Adora in the middle of the workday was new territory entirely.

“As I was saying,” Sea Hawk continued on gloriously, completely unaware of Adora’s growing concern. “I was once again subjected to—”

“Are you still ranting about the internet thing?” Mermista asked absentmindedly as she stepped into the reception area, thumbing through a small stack of papers tucked into the crook of her elbow.

Sea Hawk, upon seeing her, lit up immediately. “I was, my dearest! But, if you need it, you have my fullest attention. What can I do for you?”

Mermista, seemingly despite herself, smiled—although she tried to cover it with an eye roll. “I just need these sent to that insurance agency. Can you do that before the day’s over?”

“For you, my love,” Sea Hawk replied, reaching for the papers, “I can do that before the hour is over.”

Mermista handed the bundle off to him with a very unconvincing, “Stuff it, will you? We’re at work.” Turning to Adora and brushing her long braid over her shoulder, she said, “Hey. How’d the call go?”

“Eh,” Adora answered with a shrug.

“I feel that,” Mermista replied with a sagely nod. “Not to make it worse, but are you still up to babysit this Friday?”

Adora cocked her head to the side. “This Friday?”

“Of course!” Sea Hawk beamed. “It’s Valentine’s Day, this Friday!”

“Oh, jeez. I totally forgot.”

“You didn’t make plans, did you?” Mermista asked darkly.

Adora fixed Mermista with a flat expression. “If I’d gotten a date for Valentine’s Day, don’t you think you would’ve heard it from at least one of our coworkers by now?” With a sigh, Adora added, “So, no, no plans. I’m still free. And I’d love to. Is she sleeping over this time?”

“Yes, indeed, if you’re agreeable to that!” Sea Hawk said. “Mommy and Daddy could definitely use an evening to themselves.”

“Gross,” Adora said with a grimace.

“He’s right, though,” Mermista agreed, throwing Sea Hawk a wink.

“I stand by my gross.”

Mermista chuckled. “So, we’ll drop her off before dinner and pick her up after breakfast?”

“Yeah, that should be fine,” Adora said, biting her lip and making a mental note to warn Catra about it after work. She didn’t imagine that Catra would be particularly psyched to spend a precious Friday night with a toddler.

“Will baby mama be fine with that?” Mermista asked with narrowed eyes, in that weird way she sometimes did that made Adora feel like she had her inner thoughts written across her forehead.

Adora half cringed, half smiled. “Yeah, I’m sure she will be. Or—at least, I’m sure she’ll be able to make other plans, if she isn’t.”

“If you say so,” Mermista said with a dismissive wave of her hand. Propping her chin on her fist against Sea Hawk’s desk, she added to him, “Either way, we got ourselves a baby-free night, baby.”

Sea Hawk leaned into her space, their faces a breath away from each other. “I wonder how we shall spend it?” he asked in a distinctly unprofessional tone.

“Ugh, guys, come on,” Adora whined. She pushed herself out of the chair and, shuddering, stepped around the reception desk with the intention of braving her office again. Being anywhere else was better than being caught in the middle of whatever was about to happen, in her humble opinion.

She was stopped in her tracks, however, by the sound of the front door opening behind her. Because when she peered over her shoulder to make sure that Sea Hawk could extricate his face from between Mermista’s hands long enough to attend to whoever their guest was, Adora saw neither a client nor a vendor, but Catra.

Adora glanced down at her watch again. It was barely ten minutes after three. Adora looked back up to greet her, ask what she was doing back there so quickly, but froze instead when she noticed the way Catra was holding herself. Tight. Withdrawn. Small.

In the time it took to blink, Adora had gone to Catra’s side. “Are you okay?” she asked, quietly enough so that no one but Catra could hear her.

Catra nodded. “I’m fine. Baby’s fine.”

“Okay,” Adora said, trying to force a sigh of relief that refused to come. “So what—?”

“Can we go to your office?” Catra asked softly, wrapping her arms more tightly around her middle.

“Yes,” Adora replied. She reached to press her hand to the small of Catra’s back, but upon the first brush of Adora’s fingertips Catra just about jumped out of her skin and made a small hissing sound between her teeth. Adora pulled back at once, instead allowing her palm to hover a few inches away. Seconds from panicking, Adora shepherded Catra out of reception with a hurried, “Clear my afternoon, please,” over her shoulder at the wide-eyed pair she left behind.

Once they were closed in Adora’s office, Adora guided Catra to sit on the couch under her window. She sat next to her, mindful not to sit too close so as to be touching, but having difficulty doing so as the couch was really quite small. Adora made do by half perching on the armrest, folding one of her legs underneath her and leaving the other planted on the floor. “What’s going on, huh?” she asked, making a grand effort to keep her voice low and soothing in the same tone she’d sometimes use on her horse.

Catra, meanwhile, had dropped the car keys between them and curled in on herself, her elbows tucked back against her hips as she smoothed down her hair. “I’m sorry,” she said, coughing out what might have been a strangled laugh. “I didn’t mean to fuck up your whole schedule, or interrupt, or—”

“You’re not fucking anything up,” Adora corrected. The impulse to take one of Catra’s hands overcame her, and she resisted it by trapping her own between her thighs. “Just tell me what’s up. Everything else can wait.”

Catra released a shaky sigh and smoothed down her hair again. “It’s nothing, really, I swear. I’m just being stupid. I just—I didn’t want to go home yet and—I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Squinting at her, Adora said, “It’s obviously not nothing. Why don’t you want to go home?”

Catra shrugged and looked down at her lap. After a second, she mumbled, “It’s not a big deal. I just. . . didn’t want to be alone, necessarily.”

Despite the worry that weighed heavily on her chest, the corners of Adora’s mouth quirked upward. “You didn’t want to be alone. . . so you came here? To see me?”

Looking back up at her, Catra replied sternly, “This is not because I like you.”

“I mean, I didn’t say anything.”

Catra’s shoulders slumped as she visibly relaxed. She buried her face in her hands and groaned. “Ugh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’m being dumb.”

“Well,” Adora said, “are you going to tell me what’s going on so I can weigh in on how dumb you’re being?”

Finally, Catra chuckled, and Adora felt she could actually breathe that sigh of relief at last. Catra pulled her head up and said, “I saw Shadow Weaver.”

“Did you?” Adora asked, now chewing on her bottom lip. “How’d that go?”

“Not fucking well, obviously!” Catra scoffed. Before Adora could ask, Catra launched into it. “I went down to the agency to get my checks, thinking I could get them from the receptionist and get out before she even knew I was there. Which was stupid of me, because the woman has the ears of a hawk. Plus her receptionist probably tipped her off somehow, they can be a weasel when it suits them. So of course I waltz in there, there she is, and it barely takes three seconds for her to start laying in on me.”

“About what?” Adora asked with a tilt of her head.

“Name it,” Catra grumbled. “Literally anything, and Shadow Weaver will, one, have a problem with it and, two, blame me. This time alone I was lectured for the following.” Counting the offenses on her fingers, she listed, “My immaturity. My ungrateful attitude. My flakiness. My laziness. My potential to ruin her reputation—”

“How could you ruin her reputation?”

Catra paused. “That’s the first one you have a problem with?”

“Catra.”

Rolling her eyes hard, Catra said, “I don’t know! By, like, running off with the baby and making her look shady as all get out.”

“Is she scared of that?”

“Uh, duh. How do you think that would look on her? Collecting a buttload of money from a hot-shot, locally famous attorney, getting her own daughter to act as a surrogate, and then having that daughter disappear without a trace? Can’t you see how that looks, like, super weird and embezzlement-y?”

“I mean, yeah, I guess so. But why would she think that you’re actually gonna run off with the baby?”

“Oh, she’s always scared of that happening. It’s more common than she’d like her clients to think.”

Adora grimaced. “Yikes.”

“Plus,” Catra added, staring out the window, “I probably didn’t help at all by going radio silent on her.”

Adora nodded. “Probably not, no. But, like, it’s not like anyone would blame you for that.”

Catra took a second to take a deep inhale. As she released it, she chuckled dryly. “She just. . .”

As Catra trailed off, and despite her best efforts, Adora leaned forward. “She just what?”

Catra looked into Adora’s eyes, hard, and seemed to consider her. Whatever she saw apparently gave her the confidence to answer honestly, “She just makes me feel like a kid, when she gets like that. I don’t know. It still. . . I don’t _know_. Affects me the same way. It’s embarrassing.”

Frowning sympathetically, Adora whispered, “I get the impression she wasn’t very nice to you as a kid.”

Catra chuckled again, a little less dry than before. “No, she wasn’t. Hence, the mommy issues. But, like I said, it’s not a big deal. I’m sorry for bothering you with it.”

“Hey,” Adora said sharply. “It is a big deal, and you’re not bothering me. I. . .” She chewed on the right choice of words. “. . . I appreciate you telling me all this. I wish I could help in a more, like, constructive way. But I’m glad that you at least feel comfortable enough to share it with me.”

Smirking, Catra replied, “Yeah, well. Adora Wears-Her-Heart-On-Her-Stupid-Sleeve Stevenson is. . . surprisingly easy to talk to. I don’t just dump my baggage on anyone’s doorstep.”

“Metaphorical or literal, I assume.” Reflecting Catra’s smirk back at her, Adora quipped, “And you say you don’t like me.”

“I don’t.”

Overcome with something—something that Adora didn’t want to identify—she took the chance to try to pull Catra into a hug. In doing so, however, she grabbed Catra’s wrist for leverage, and Catra immediately recoiled.

“I’m sorry!” Adora cried, leaning back with her hands over her mouth. Her cheeks burned as she rattled on, “I was just trying to hug you, I didn’t—I wasn’t—I mean, I didn’t mean to scare you, or, or. . . Are you hurt?”

For Catra had pulled her wrist into her chest, cradling it with her free hand. “No, no,” Catra responded with a cringe. “I’m fine. You didn’t—”

“Are you sure? You’re holding it like it’s hurt.”

“It’s not—It does hurt. A little. It’s okay. Shadow—”

Catra cut herself off too late. With uncharacteristically rapid realization, Adora felt her guts ice over. “Shadow Weaver?”

Catra just shook her head, diverting her gaze to somewhere over Adora’s shoulder.

“Did Shadow Weaver hurt you?”

Catra didn’t answer.

Adora dropped her hands into her lap. “Catra.”

“It’s fine!” Catra blurted. “It’s not like she, like, beat the shit out of me, or anything!”

Adora’s already burning cheeks grew hotter. “Then what did she do?”

“She just—” Catra sighed wearily, but didn’t go on.

“Let me see.”

Catra hesitated then, obediently, held out her wrist for Adora’s inspection. With a gentleness incongruent with the angry heat rippling through her core, Adora pushed back the sleeve of Catra’s sweater. With a sinking heart, Adora found that Catra’s wrist was red, splotched with absurdly distinct lines right at the end of her forearm. Fingers—or, at least, what fingers left behind.

In a heartbeat, Adora was on her feet, the car keys in her hand almost without thinking.

“Adora—”

“Stay here,” Adora barked, quite nearly ripping her office door off its hinges as she marched out of the room. She hooked a sharp left to open the door to the office adjacent to hers, not taking the time to knock.

“Adora!” Bow exclaimed, unceremoniously pushing Glimmer off his lap onto the floor.

“Bow!” Glimmer yelled.

“I’m sorry, hon,” he replied, standing from his desk chair and stooping to lend Glimmer a hand. “She scared me, I panicked! Adora, what—”

“Keep Catra here,” Adora instructed him, pointing towards her own office.

“Adora,” Catra scolded from behind her. “Stop. What are you going—?”

“I said _stay here!_ ” Adora snapped as she turned on her. Catra winced, and something in Adora’s gut fractured a tiny amount, numbing her fury by perhaps a single degree. Delicately, Adora placed her hand on Catra’s shoulder and, when she didn’t shy away, placed her other hand on Catra’s other shoulder for good measure. “Catra, I’m sorry. But please, just—Stay, okay? I’ll be right back.” And with a gentle squeeze, she pulled away again.

A chorus of _Adoras_ —with intermingling tones of worry and confusion and (from Catra, Adora was sure) aggravation—followed in her wake as she ran down the hallway and out the door.

The bells at the top of the agency’s front door clanged together as, upon Adora’s entry, they were hit with such force that they were knocked off their hook entirely and crashed to the floor. The receptionist looked up—clearly surprised, at first, but then with a shit-eating grin like they knew they were about to be in for a good show.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Stevenson,” they drawled, twirling their long, blonde hair around a catlike fingernail. “And what can we do for you today?”

“Shadow Weaver,” Adora blurted as she kicked the bells out of her way, stomped to the counter, and gripped its edge. “I need to talk to her. Now.”

“She’s on a call, darling,” the receptionist replied, waving vaguely at the row of chairs behind Adora. “Why don’t you have a seat while—”

Adora slammed one of her fists on the counter, and the receptionist blinked, albeit not quite flinching. “I said _now_ ,” Adora seethed, coming to her full height to loom over them. “Get her off the phone.”

The receptionist stood, too. Though they were quite a bit taller than Adora, they planted their hands on their desk and stooped to be at her eye level. “To what, pray tell, does she owe the occasion? If I’m expected to interrupt a business transaction—something that she has told me several times never to do—” Their grin widened maliciously. “—I want to be sure it’s for something good.”

Adora opened her mouth to give them a scathing reply, but they interrupted before she had a real chance.

“Oh, let me guess!” They straightened up and clapped their hands together in false enthusiasm. “It doesn’t have anything to do with our kitten, does it?”

“Our _kitten_?” Adora repeated, her head tilting to the side. “What—?”

“Adora,” a voice announced from Adora’s left. Shadow Weaver stood in the open door to the hallway beyond, tall and straight. “What a surprise. Please, do come in. Double Trouble,” she aimed at the receptionist with a slanted brow. “Ms. Stevenson is one of our most valued clients. In future, I would like you to prioritize—”

“ _You_.” Adora flung herself off of the front desk and moved to come toe to toe with Shadow Weaver.

“Adora!” Shadow Weaver said, scandalized, her eyes going wide. “What is the meaning of this?”

Pointing a finger into Shadow Weaver’s face, Adora shouted, “You know! You _know_ what you did!”

Just as rapidly as Shadow Weaver’s eyes had widened, they narrowed. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. Please—” She gestured down the hallway. “—come back with me into my office so that we can discuss—”

“I don’t think so,” Adora responded, shaking her head. She dropped her hand to curl it into a fist by her hip. “There’s nothing to discuss. Catra told me—”

“Catra,” Shadow Weaver scoffed, Catra’s name rolling off her tongue like a sour grape. “I told her to have no outside contact with you. Forgive me if I am mistaken, but I believe I told you the same thing.”

Adora released a mirthless laugh. “I’m sorry, I think that’s the least of your problems right now.”

“My problems?” Shadow Weaver chuckled. “What are my problems, then, by your account?”

“Where to start! Unconscionable fees, paying your birth mothers pennies—”

“I can account for where every single red cent that I receive goes,” Shadow Weaver interrupted. “And might I remind you that you’re the one who signed a contract. You should also know that you’re not the first to challenge the ethics of my practices, and I have come away unscathed on every prior occasion.”

“Well, I’ll add myself to the list then, formally. I can make a report to the state licensing agency. I do have an in with them. You yourself said how well known I am to this circle.”

Shadow Weaver blinked, the only betrayal of her otherwise stony demeanor. She recovered quickly, though. “If you feel—”

“Oh, I’m not done,” Adora said as she sliced her hand through the air. “Extorting your own daughter. Depriving her of a place to live and a mode of transportation when she’s pregnant.”

“You have been talking, haven’t you?” Shadow Weaver said, her voice steely. “I’ll have you know that I have not done anything to my insolent brat of a daughter that was not in my legal right to do.”

“Does that include shoving her around?” Adora asked.

Shadow Weaver stilled again. “I did no such thing. If Catra told you otherwise, she is more of a liar than I already thought. She’s good at what she does, Catra. Calculating, manipulating. She is a terrible disappointment and a black mark on my name. Surely someone as intelligent and respectable as you wouldn’t fall for the tricks of a common rat like her.”

At that, Adora grabbed the edge of the doorframe and leaned forward, her nose hovering inches away from Shadow Weaver’s. “ _I could ruin you_ ,” she whispered as hot tears pricked her eyes.

“And I could call the police!” Shadow Weaver snapped, taking a step back and gaping at Adora like she’d never seen her before. She peered over Adora’s shoulder to the front desk. “Double Trouble—”

“Yeah, hold off on that,” Adora cut in, twisting to speak to Double Trouble (who, by anyone’s standard, looked absolutely delighted). “Do you have Catra’s number?”

“Of course!” Double Trouble replied. “She’s still on my speed dial.”

Adora didn’t have the energy or time to unpack _that_ at the moment. But she did reply, “If you do call the cops, call her, too. I want her here for this.”

“Oh, lovely,” Double Trouble said, pulling their cell phone from under the desk.

“Wait a moment,” Shadow Weaver called, holding her palm out to Double Trouble. To Adora, she asked, “What would Catra have to say—”

“She doesn’t have to say anything,” Adora hissed back. “She’d just have to show them her wrist. You left welts on her.”

Shadow Weaver didn’t hesitate before lifting her chin higher. “I did not. Whatever she has, she’s done to herself.”

“Did she?” Turning again to Double Trouble, Adora asked, “Did you see what happened?”

Double Trouble beamed like Christmas had come ten months early. “I might have, depending on what’s in it for me.”

“Your job, on the one hand,” Shadow Weaver spat.

Levelling Shadow Weaver with a malicious glare, Adora said, “I will call the police myself. I have Catra and your own receptionist as witnesses. You will be prosecuted for assault— _aggravated_ assault, maybe, because she’s pregnant. I have the connections, and I will use them to make sure you go to jail for however long they can keep you. You will lose your money, your business, and your reputation.”

“Adora—”

Swallowing down a bout of maniacal laughter threatening to bubble up her throat, Adora growled, “Just say the word, and I swear to god. I. Will. _Ruin you_.”

After a long, tense pause, Shadow Weaver took a deep breath and asked, “What do you want, Adora?”

Victorious, Adora took a step back and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I want you out.”

Shadow Weaver looked genuinely surprised by that, with her eyebrows furrowed low over her eyes. “Out of what, exactly?”

“This. My and Catra’s arrangement. I want you gone. I want the contract ripped to shreds. I want Catra to receive all of the birth expenses she’s entitled to. And I want you to leave her—to leave us alone.”

Shadow Weaver frowned deeply. “Are you still intending to adopt the child that Catra carries?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Adora said (her insides squirming as she did because, of course, that is the single thing that mattered most to her in the world). “If the contract is void, you don’t need to worry about whether I do or don’t.”

“And if I elect not to void the contract?”

Adora’s brow furrowed this time. “Then I call the police for what you did to Catra.”

Shadow Weaver smiled politely, patronizingly. “Yes, but regardless of what happens with that I will still be owed the remainder of the fee if the adoption does take place. It’s no small amount, mind you.”

“I couldn’t care less about the money,” Adora said with finality. “I’d pay a hundred thousand more dollars to see you behind bars.”

There was another long pause as Shadow Weaver surveyed Adora, her smile having completely vanished without a trace. “How do I know you won’t call the police the moment I void the contract, if I do indeed choose to do so?”

Adora shook her head. “You don’t know that. But you have my word.”

After yet another stretch of silence, Shadow Weaver said, “I will think about it.”

Adora nodded. “That’s fine. Take until Monday. Catra’s bruises should be nice and purple by then.”

Shadow Weaver almost blinked, but Adora suspected it was less of a flinch and more so done to suppress an eye roll. To Double Trouble, Shadow Weaver instructed, “Be sure that Ms. Stevenson leaves the property.” And, with that, she disappeared into the hallway, closing the door behind her with a slam.

With an exhaltant groan, Double Trouble said, “Queen! _Thank you_.”

Slowly, Adora turned to appraise them. “What? Why?”

“Because,” they declared, pressing their hands over their heart, “between you and kitten, that was enough drama to carry me through the weekend.” With a wink, they added, “If you do call the cops, do not hesitate to send them to me for a statement. I’ll give them the monologue of my life. I literally don’t even care if that crone fires me over it.” They sighed again, dreamily. “One hundred percent worth it.”

With heavy feet, Adora reentered her firm’s lobby. Sea Hawk wasn’t at the front desk, though; in fact, nobody was. Adora checked her watch. It wasn’t even yet half past four o’clock. Their firm was still open, certainly. But, upon further inspection of the hallway beyond reception, Adora could find no evidence of that. All offices—hers included—were deserted.

Ducking back out of her office, Adora stood in place and put her hands on her hips. “Guys?” she called, listening hard for a response. “Catra?”

There was a long second before someone’s head popped into view from the opposite end of the building, on the other side of the reception desk. “Adora!” Bow called with a grin.

“Oh, hey,” Adora sighed, walking back down the hall. As she rounded the front desk, she asked, “Where is everybody? Where’s Catra?”

As Adora approached, she noticed that the grin Bow was wearing was. . . strange, somehow. The strangeness only intensified as his eyebrows slanted in the way they did when he was feeling guilty about something.

“Bow,” she asked, stopping in her tracks, “what’s with the face?”

The grin dropped as Bow replied, “I couldn’t stop them. I tried, but—”

Realization dawned on Adora just as soon as she could hear a raucous laugh come from behind Bow. “ _No_ ,” she groaned and, running, skidded around the corner, through the open door, and stopped on a dime just inside of the office break room.

It was too late. There Catra stood frozen, pinned against the counter next to the fridge, with no less than three sets of hands pressing her sweater against her stomach.

“Just you wait,” Micah chuckled. “Soon enough, this little one is going to be kicking you everywhere they can reach—and it’s not gonna feel like those flutters you have now. When Glimmer’s mom was about to pop, you could see the outline of Glimmer’s tiny feet from the outside, she was pushing so hard against her! Poor woman had to pee every three seconds, too.”

“Is anyone else feeling anything?” Frosta asked, frowning. “Because I’m getting squat.”

Perfuma, who was on her knees to be at eye level with Catra’s belly button, said, “I can feel the most beautiful energy radiating from your womb, Catra. It’s energetic and mischievous, but also wise. I think this wonderful child is going to be a great gift to humankind.”

“Uh,” is all Catra had to say to that, at which point Adora finally regained power over her feet and voice.

“Okay!” Adora called, stepping forward. Micah, Frosta, and Perfuma turned to look at her, their hands pressed side by side like they were warming them over a fire. “I think that’s enough inappropriate touching for one day, right?”

All three withdrew their hands at once and, as Frosta helped Perfuma to her feet, Micah rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, sweetie,” he said low to Catra—who was busy breathing a sigh of relief. “Adora’s been real secretive about you. I guess we just kinda got wrapped up in the excitement.”

“It’s fine,” Catra replied with a stiff smile.

“Next time,” Mermista called from where she lounged in a plastic chair, “just bite ’em. That’s what I did.”

“To the deterrence of everyone but your boyfriend,” Netossa said cheekily from the chair next to her.

Mermista smirked. “Yeah, but he was used to that.”

“Ugh, can you not?” Glimmer asked. She leaned against the wall, arms crossed. A visible shudder ran through her. “So gross.”

“Says the one who was straddling Bow when I walked in,” Adora chided, weaving through the group around Catra to stand beside her.

Immediately, Glimmer went a bright, lobster red. “Adora!”

Micah blinked. “I didn’t hear that,” he mumbled before promptly disappearing from the room.

“What the _hell_?” Glimmer shouted, gesticulating wildly at the space her father left behind. “What’d you say that in front of my dad for?”

Adora shrugged. “Payback for exposing Catra to the pack of weirdos we work with.” To the group at large, Adora added, “Thank you all for being super normal and appropriate, I’m sure.”

“But we were!” Sea Hawk replied in a hurt tone. “We just wanted to extend a proper, warm welcome!”

“And that included manhandling her?”

“And asking insanely personal questions,” Mermista tacked on, her eyes shining in a way that said she was thoroughly enjoying herself.

Before Adora could scold the room properly, Catra cut in. “Adora, it’s fine,” she said sternly, quietly.

Pouting, Adora responded in a whisper, “Not if they made you uncomfortable.”

“I said I’m fine,” Catra hissed back, her brow furrowed. “Let it go, will you?”

“Fine!” Adora said, throwing her arms in the air and kicking off from her spot on the counter. To the room, she announced, “I’m taking Catra home. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

As Catra followed wordlessly, Spinnerella called, “It was very nice to meet you. Come back to say hi more often, okay?”

Catra smiled stiffly again, but still said nothing as Adora led her back to her office. Once inside, Adora collected her briefcase from under her desk and groaned, “I’m sorry about all that. The team is great, really, like family. But they can be a lot.”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Catra grumbled, hands on her hips and staring above Adora’s head. “They were fine. I’m fine. You don’t need to go all knight-in-shining-armor on me.”

Adora rolled her eyes. “Right, like you weren’t viscerally uncomfortable to be stranded in a room with them. I can’t believe Glimmer and Bow let that happen.”

“Wasn’t their fault,” Catra scoffed. “They weren’t the ones who left me without the car.”

Stilling for a moment, Adora narrowed her eyes. “Okay, are you mad at me because I wanted to keep you away from my coworkers, or because I left you alone with them? You can’t be both.”

“I’m not mad!” Catra snapped, turning on her heel and stomping out of Adora’s office.

Adora quickened her pace to catch up with her halfway down the hallway. “Really?” she huffed. “Because you sound mad.”

Catra sighed heavily—more than once—in the time it took them to go out the front door. Before she opened the passenger-side door, though, she said, like it pained her, “I didn’t want you to go after Shadow Weaver. And I wish you’d bothered to ask me before you did.”

Adora, from where she stood at the driver-side door, pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I was just trying to protect you,” she replied eventually.

“Well, don’t!” Catra opened her door and slid into her seat. As Adora did the same, Catra continued, “I don’t need protection.”

“I know you don’t,” Adora said, starting the car. She leaned back against her seat, though, not yet pulling away from the curb. “I just got really, really angry. I guess. . . I wasn’t thinking straight.” After a brief pause, she added, “You’re right. I shouldn’t have confronted her without talking to you about it. I’m sorry.”

Catra, with her arms crossed in front of her chest, shrugged. “Whatever. It’s fine.”

“It’s obviously not.”

Catra groaned wordlessly at the sky, then said, “It will be fine. I’ll get over it.” After a deep breath, she added snidely, “Thank you for apologizing.”

In spite of herself, Adora’s lips quirked upward. “Look at the emotional maturity on you. That’s new.”

Adora knew that the statement was a gamble—but it was one that paid off as, much to Adora’s relief, Catra smirked. “Shut up. Just. . . Tell me what happened, I guess.”

Adora took the wheel and maneuvered the car into traffic. “Nothing happened, really.”

Catra scoffed and turned to appraise Adora with narrowed eyes. “Nothing? Really? So you went to the agency, turned around, and came back without any interaction with Shadow Weaver?”

“Well. . .” Adora bit her bottom lip. “No, it was. . . a little more than that.”

“Yeah, I thought so.” Catra kicked her feet up to rest on the dashboard. “Spill.”

“There’s not a whole lot to tell,” Adora said (hoping Catra would buy the simple version of events so that she could avoid repeating all the awful things Shadow Weaver had said about her). “But, in short, I kind of threatened to call the police if she didn’t let us out of the contract.”

Catra’s jaw dropped. “And?”

“And—” Adora shrugged. “—she said she’d think about it.”

Catra whistled. “Wow. Just like that? No ominous threats or dire warnings or anything?”

“Well,” Adora said as a little heat rushed to her cheeks. “She kind of threatened to call the cops first. . .”

Barking out a laugh, Catra asked, “Why? What’d you do?”

“Nothing! I just, like. . . kind of got in her face. A little!” Adora was now straight-up blushing, but laughing, too. “I turned it around on her, though. And the receptionist said they’d vouch for you.”

“Ah, Double Trouble,” Catra sighed wearily, still grinning. “Won’t step in to defend me, of course, but will do anything to add to the drama.”

“Oh, yeah, by the way!” Adora said, releasing one hand from the wheel to lift her finger in the air. “Why do they have you on speed dial? Are they, like, another one of your friends who’re gonna come confront me?”

At that, though, Catra went silent. After a long pause, she said, much less animatedly, “No, they, uh. . . We kind of dated a few years back. For, like, a second.”

Adora blinked, and a plummeting feeling swept through her insides. “Oh,” she said. “They didn’t mention that. Was it. . . Was it serious?”

Catra scoffed. “No. I mean, it had some serious repercussions on my permanent record. But we definitely were not headed towards the aisle. Like I said, it was, like, really short. I don’t think we ever even talked about being exclusive, or anything.”

“Huh,” Adora said. Then cocked her head to the side. “Wait, what was that about your permanent record?”

“They’re—” Catra stopped and swiped her tongue over her bottom lip. “They’re who I got in trouble with.”

It was Adora’s turn for her jaw to drop. “Oh, my god, I completely forgot about that! What happened there?”

Catra dropped her feet back to the floor of the car. “It was stupid! And one-hundred percent their fault.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” Adora said cheekily.

“Ugh.” Catra hung her head in her hands. “I don’t know! We used to, like, sneak into rich-people parties in the foothills and steal shit.”

“You what?”

“I was twenty-four years old!”

“Oh, my god!” Adora howled with laughter. “When I was twenty four, I was in law school!”

“Well, la dee da for you!” Catra replied, looking up from her hands with an expression that was half-mocking and half-impressed. “You prove again that you’re superhuman!”

“Plenty of twenty-four-year-olds go to law school,” Adora said with an eye roll.

“And plenty of others were having meaningless hook-ups and committing property crimes,” Catra shot back. “I’d bet that more of us were doing that, actually.”

“Yeah, and where’d that get you?” Adora said, stifling a giggle. “I’ll tell you where—unmarried and pregnant.”

Catra squeaked out her awful, truly horrible laugh, and it set Adora’s skin vibrating. “Yeah,” Catra sighed eventually, once she’d regained control over herself. She ran her hands down her stomach once. “Eh, I had fun getting there, though. Worth it.”

Before her impulse control could stop her, Adora asked, “So did you do a lot of that? Hook ups and property crime?”

“The property crimes were a month-long thing,” Catra said, gazing sidelong out of the window. “The hook ups were a bit more frequent, but eh. No to both, really.”

“No partners?”

Catra cringed. “I mean, I dated Scorpia for six months right out of college.”

Adora could only sit there, mouth agape. “Are you kidding me?” she asked. “Scorpia?”

Nodding, Catra said, “Yep. It was. . . not a good idea.”

“Scorpia,” Adora groaned. “Oh, my god. No wonder she hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you because we dated, she’s just overprotective of her friends.”

“But you’re not denying that she hates me!”

“Yeah, but—” Catra grinned wickedly. “—you knew that already.”

“Do you—” Adora stopped, swallowed down the wriggling sensation in her chest, and started again. “Do you guys still, like, have feelings for each other?”

Catra scowled. “Yuck, no. We would not be friends if we did.” Fixing Adora with some kind of look from the corners of her eyes, she asked, “What, you’re not friends with any of your exes?”

Unable to keep her laugh in, Adora said, “I’d have to have exes first.”

“You’re kidding,” Catra said. She turned a bit in her seat to look at Adora more directly, her face unamused. “You’ve never dated anyone? Literally no one, ever?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Adora replied, grimacing. “But never long enough to call them exes.”

“Why not?”

Adora shrugged. “I don’t know. I was in school. Then I was working a lot.”

She hesitated, though, before she said anything more. There was another thing—a kind of pretty major thing—that contributed to her historic lack of passionate love affairs. But, like so often previously, Adora bit her tongue about it. She didn’t want to make Catra feel bad, and the thing was a blackhole of bad feelings.

On the other hand, though, it was something that’d been pressing on her, especially since that night Catra had to go to the hospital when Bow had lectured her about communication and honesty and all that racket. Plus, she figured Catra would like an answer to the mystery of why she was there in Adora’s life in the first place. She’d only alluded to it once in a fit of rage, but certainly Catra hadn’t forgotten, had she?

Before Adora could make the choice, however, Catra spared her. “Nerd alert,” she chuckled. “Local woman too busy saving the world to get laid.”

That set Adora spluttering. “Catra!”

“I’m just saying,” Catra said casually. “It’s not gonna get any easier when the baby comes, you know. You’ll be begging for babysitters just to get after-work drinks, let along to go home with somebody and—”

Adora slapped her forehead. “Ah, I totally forgot!”

“What? Forgot what?”

“I’m sorry,” Adora whined, glancing sideways at Catra with an ingratiating smile. “You just reminded me, talking about babysitting. But I kind of promised Mermista and Sea Hawk that I would watch their daughter this Friday at our place. They, uh, want their house to themselves for Valentine’s Day.”

“Gross,” Catra deadpanned. Then she frowned. “Am I expected to be there this time?”

“Oh, no! Not at all! But—ugh, I’ll need the car, though? Just in case there’s an emergency, I need to be able to drive Pearl.”

“Pearl,” Catra repeated, in much the same tone one might use to repeat a curse word they’d never heard before. “The names people come up with. . .”

“We’re not getting into this again,” Adora scolded playfully.

Catra hummed, then said, “Okay, I can get Scorpia to pick me up. She was begging me to go to some speed-dating thing with her anyway.”

“Oh?” Adora asked, that plummeting feeling sweeping through her again.

“For moral support,” Catra clarified. “How long will you have the rugrat for?”

“Until, like, mid-morning Saturday.”

“Classic,” Catra said with a sneer. “Even on Valentine’s Day, you sacrifice getting yourself a date so other people can bone instead.”

Adora made a pfft sound between her lips. “Can’t sacrifice what I didn’t have in the first place.”

“You could’ve easily gotten a date,” Catra sighed, a smirk playing at the corners of her mouth. “All you had to do was ask.”

Although Catra had said it in an offhanded-enough way, Adora’s heart stopped dead in her chest. Catra, unaware of this, propped her elbow on the passenger windowsill and watched as they exited city limits and entered their neighborhood. All you had to do was ask. Surely, Catra meant that Adora could’ve gotten a date with any person she asked. Surely, Catra hadn’t meant that all Adora had to do was ask her in particular.

Adora didn’t ask for clarification either way, though, as that—whatever the answer was—would have been troublesome. Instead, she allowed their newfound silence to carry them the rest of the way home.

Friday after work, however, it was with a much different energy that Adora shot out of the car like it was about to explode.

“Jesus,” Catra called after her, pulling herself out the driver’s seat much more slowly. “You act like you’re gonna be late, or something. Aren’t they bringing her here?”

Adora was already turning the key in the front screen door. “They are, but they live only, like, five minutes away, and I still have to change and put up the baby gate and close off the den and—”

Catra sighed, catching up to Adora right as she got the front door open. “And they have to get together all their kid’s shit. And those things definitely don’t travel light. So take a breath, will you? You’re making me anxious.”

Adora shook her head as she kicked off her heels in the foyer and scooped them up. “I’ve got a lot of stuff for her here, though, Mermista and Sea Hawk are really just bringing a small overnight bag and her carseat. And, trust me, they’ve got the packing down to a science. They’ll be here in, like, fifteen minutes, absolute max.”

Catra jutted her chin out and furrowed her brow. “How do you have that much stuff for her?”

Grinning, Adora rounded the hallway and, throwing her shoes onto her bedroom floor as she passed its open door, continued on to the unoccupied guest room. “Aw, Pearl’s my little buddy. Other than her grandparents I’m, like, her main babysitter.” She threw open the closet door and, from it, dragged out a portable crib and a box of toys.

“Jesus,” Catra said again from where she leaned against the doorframe. “Why even bother having a baby of your own when you’re obviously one good meltdown away from kidnapping this one?”

Adora guffawed and maneuvered past Catra down the hallway and into her own bedroom. There, she kicked her shoes under her bed and dumped the load in her arms onto the vacated carpet. With practiced hands, she unfolded the portable crib. “Can you do me a favor?” Adora asked, sparing Catra a quick glance over her shoulder. “Will you go get the crib sheets from the hall closet for me? They’ve got otters on them.”

“Ugh,” Catra said, but disappeared from Adora’s bedroom all the same. A minute later, just as Adora locked the frame of the portable crib into place, Catra reappeared. “Here. I’m going to go hide in my room until Scorpia picks me up. If you need anything from me, don’t.”

“Got it,” Adora replied, smiling gratefully and taking the sheets from Catra’s outstretched hand. “Thanks.”

Ten minutes later, just as Adora finished stepping into jeans and re-tying her ponytail, the doorbell rang. Skidding around the hallway on socked feet, Adora dashed to the door and pulled it open in time for a little body to crash against her knees.

“Pearl,” Mermista scolded halfheartedly from where she held the screen door open. “Chill.”

“It’s okay!” Adora grunted, picking the toddler up from her armpits and swinging her onto one hip. Pressing a kiss to Pearl’s cheek, Adora giggled, “Hey, Pearly girl.”

Pearl laughed and pressed Adora’s cheeks between her pudgy hands. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Adora said, beaming. To Sea Hawk, who was just coming to Mermista’s side, a bulging, teal bag strapped over his shoulder, Adora offered her car keys. “Trade you.”

Sea Hawk accepted the keys and transferred the bag onto Adora’s shoulder. “I’ll be right back, my dear ladies!” he announced before jogging back towards the driveway.

“So,” Mermista began, counting items off on her fingers. “Bedtime is technically eight, but good luck telling her that. She’s currently obsessed with these weird little yogurt puffs, so there’s, like, three boxes of those in there. You can basically get her to do anything with them. And. . .” Mermista shrugged. “Yeah. Don’t kill her, I guess. That’s it.”

“Okay,” Adora said, chuckling. Pearl began wriggling, and Adora bent to place her back on her feet, keeping a firm hold of her hand. “Hold on, Pearl. Say bye to your mom and dad, and then we can go play.”

Mermista crouched to pull her daughter into her arms. “You okay, dude?”

“Okay, dude,” Pearl replied.

Mermista kissed her daughter’s forehead with a soft smile, the likes of which Adora’d never seen before Pearl was born. “Okay. Love you.”

“Love you, Mama.”

“And what about me?” Sea Hawk cried, rejoining them and falling to his knees next to Mermista. “Certainly Pearl loves Daddy, as well?”

“Love you, Daddy!” Pearl squealed, her laughter pitching high as Sea Hawk pulled her into an embrace and blowing a raspberry where her neck met her shoulder.

“And I love you, my angel! Have fun!” he instructed, and he and Mermista stood together. Sea Hawk then returned Adora’s keys by stuffing them into a pocket of Pearl’s bag. “Carseat is locked and loaded, my friend! Although I certainly hope, as always, that its use is not required.”

“Yeah,” Adora said, re-taking Pearl’s hand and tugging her back to her side. Conspiratorially, she added, “Unless we. . . I don’t know. Get, like. . . ice cream. Or something.”

At once, Pearl looked up at Adora like she was Santa Claus himself. “Ice cream?” she asked, eyes comically wide and hopeful.

“If you wanna deal with the sugar crash, be my guest,” Mermista said, shrugging as she took Sea Hawk’s hand and started pulling him down the front walkway. “Come on, Daddy,” she said to him with one eyebrow quirked upward. “Let’s go use our empty house.”

“Every surface of it,” Sea Hawk replied huskily.

Covering Pearl's ears with her hands, Adora called after them, “Guys! In front of the baby? Wait until you’re in the car at least!”

In response, Mermista released Sea Hawk’s hand to cup hers around his butt cheek, and then they disappeared around the corner of the garage.

“Yuck,” Adora said, scooping Pearl up again and balancing her on her hip. “Mama and Daddy are gross, huh?”

“Gross, huh!” Pearl confirmed with a very serious nod of her head. “Yuck.”

“Yuck!” Adora kissed Pearl’s cheek and, stepping inside the house, said, “Let’s wash our eyes with a little bit of cartoons. What do you say?”

Adora sat in the corner of the couch, a bowl of pasta held suspended an inch above Pearl’s head. Pearl sat between Adora’s legs, her own bowl of buttered noodles between hers.

“So, that’s the bad guy,” Adora explained around a half-chewed mouthful of food. “He’s really, really mean.”

Pearl didn’t respond, her attention too riveted on the television screen in front of them. Hades had descended into the Underworld, and the electric blue of the River Styx reflected in Pearl’s dark eyes. “Puppy!” she said eventually.

Adora hummed. “That’s Cerberus. Can you say Cerberus?”

“Suh-buh-puss.”

“Very good.”

Pearl twisted around to look sternly into Adora’s face. “Where baby?”

“The baby’s still on Mount Olympus. You’ll see him again in a second.”

Pearl nodded, and turned back.

The movie went on. Further in, when Pain and Panic had transformed into snakes and were slithering closer and closer to baby Hercules, and a bolt of lightning struck across the screen, Pearl stiffened. With a little whine, she shimmied further back against Adora’s stomach.

“It’s okay,” Adora said casually, placing her bowl on the coffee table by her knee and pulling Pearl closer. “See? The baby got them, it’s okay, they’re not gonna hurt him.” Squinting at the screen, Adora added, “But don’t do that with a snake if you see one in real life, okay?”

Pearl whined again, but quieter. Smiling softly, Adora ran her hand down Pearl’s soft curls and pressed her nose to them, breathing in a light scent of baby powder.

Just then, Melog jumped onto the other end of the sectional with a little prrbt sound. She froze at once, seeing Pearl. Pearl froze, too, and for a moment toddler and cat regarded each other in a tense silence.

“Kitty!” Pearl finally announced, and launched out of Adora’s lap, her plastic bowl and fork clattering to the floor. Melog bolted, off her own cushion and down the hallway, Pearl in hot pursuit.

“Pearl, wait!” Adora called, jumping to her own feet and stepping over the mess of butter splattered on the tile. By the time she’d made it around the sectional, though, Pearl had already disappeared into the depths of the back part of the house. “Pearl!” Adora called again, skidding around the corner just in time to watch Pearl push open the door to Catra’s bedroom. “No, no, honey! You can’t go in there!”

Adora’s demand went unheard, however, and with a groan of exasperation she followed. When she crossed the threshold, she found Pearl’s bottom poking out from under Catra’s bed. On top of Catra’s bed, Catra lay bewildered. “Uh?” Catra said.

“Sorry,” Adora replied with an embarrassed grin. “She, um. She met Melog?”

“I figured,” Catra said, putting her phone down beside her and sitting up. As she did, a hiss sounded from under the bed. “Uh—” Her expression went apprehensive. “I think you better get her out from under there. Melog’s never met a kid before.”

“Oh, jeez!” Adora rushed forward to pull Pearl out by her hips.

“Kitty!” Pearl protested, turning to appraise Adora with a sour pout of her lips.

“Sorry, babe,” Adora replied, lifting Pearl with a grunt. “Kitty’s scared, I think. I don’t want her to hurt you.”

“Or for you to hurt her,” Catra added, smirking a bit.

Pearl noticed Catra then. She blinked at her once, and then buried her head between Adora’s chin and shoulder.

“She’s shy,” Adora said by way of explanation. “Pearl, this is Catra. Can you say hi?”

Pearl could not. Or, at least, she did not, as she refused to pry herself off of Adora’s upper body.

“It’s okay,” Adora soothed, rubbing Pearl’s back. “Catra’s really nice.”

Catra narrowed her eyes. “No, I’m not.”

“Catra.”

“I’m kidding!” Smiling uneasily, Catra said, “Um. Hey. . . Pearl. How. . . are you?”

Pearl whined and curled her fists around the front of Adora’s shirt.

With an eye roll, Adora said, “Eh, it was a good try. Sorry again, though. We’ll leave you alone.” To Pearl, she crooned, “Wanna go back to the movie?”

“Wait,” Catra said with a slight grimace. “Just hold on a sec.” She slid off the bed and got to her knees. Before Adora could ask what she was doing, Catra had reached under the bed and pulled Melog from her hiding place. With a weak hiss, Melog permitted Catra to hold her to her chest and stand. “She’ll be okay if I’m holding her,” Catra stated, shrugging. “If, like, Pearl wants to meet her.”

Adora’s smile burst out, and she nudged her chin against Pearl’s head. “Hey, Pearly girl. D’you wanna meet the kitty?”

Hesitantly, Pearl pulled a bit away from Adora’s neck to level Catra with a side-eye that was clearly inherited from Mermista. When she saw Melog, though, she giggled. “Hi,” she said.

Smiling awkwardly, Catra said, “Hey. You—Uh. You wanna pet her?” To Adora, she asked, “Is that okay?”

“I don’t know,” Adora said. To Pearl, she asked, “Is it okay if you pet Melog?”

“Okay,” Pearl confirmed.

“Okay,” Adora repeated. “Nice hands, though. Go slow.”

Adora and Catra stepped towards each other, Adora holding Pearl’s hand outstretched and Catra angling Melog’s head to meet them. On making contact, Adora guided Pearl’s hand gently down Melog’s head and shoulders. “Aw, see?” Adora said, looking at Pearl, whose eyes were lit with unadulterated joy. “Isn’t she soft?”

“Soft,” Pearl agreed.

Catra’s tight smile loosened, reaching her eyes. To Adora, she said, “I think this is the closest Melog’s ever come to letting you pet her.”

“I won’t push it, then,” Adora responded wryly. “I don’t want her to take her hatred of me out on Pearl.”

“Nah, she’s fine,” Catra said, shifting Melog a bit so that she wasn’t holding her so tightly. Melog didn’t make a move to extricate herself from Catra’s arms and, after an extra second, chirped.

“Mee-yow,” Pearl replied.

“You’re so smart,” Adora gushed, nuzzling her face into Pearl’s cheek.

Pearl laughed from deep in her belly, and placed her hand on Adora’s temple. “Stop.”

Catra laughed out loud at that, and said, “You tell her, kid.”

Pearl beamed at her. “I’m two!” she announced suddenly.

Catra bobbed her head in a nod. “Cool. I’m twenty-nine.”

“Wow,” Pearl said, the gears in her head obviously turning as she tried to comprehend a number so large.

“Yep,” Catra replied. Melog pushed off against her chest then, though, and disappeared once more under the bed. “Guess she was done with that.”

“Guess so,” Adora agreed, pulling Pearl away from her shoulder and depositing her back on her feet. “Okay, movie?”

Pearl nodded. “Movie.” She took Adora’s outstretched hand—and then reached back to take Catra’s as well. “Movie?”

Catra blinked. “Uh—”

“Catra’s busy, I think,” Adora explained. Looking to Catra, though, she raised an eyebrow. “Unless you want to? I mean, you’re obviously invited. But—”

“No,” Catra interrupted. Giving Pearl’s hand a little shake, she said, “It’s okay. I could be down for a movie. What’re we watching?”

“Baby!” Pearl answered.

“Hercules,” Adora translated. Pinching her lips together to hide her smile, she added, “You sure? I don’t wanna cramp your style.”

Catra snorted. “Whatever. Scorpia’s not picking me up until, like, seven. It’s not like I have anything else to do.”

“Oh, yeah,” Adora replied. “It’s not that you actually want to hang out with us.”

“Not with you. Pearl’s cool, though.”

Pearl grinned toothily at Adora. “I’m cool.”

“You are cool,” Adora confirmed. Tugging Pearl along—who, in turn, tugged Catra along—she added, “I’m cool, too.”

Catra snorted again. “You wish.”

Despite the fact that, historically, Pearl took a long time to warm up to strangers, she didn’t seem to have that problem with Catra. She leaned heavily into Catra’s side, her hands clinging limply to her battered stuffed mermaid, as she stared determinately at the television. Catra—although she kept her arms crossed over her chest—didn’t appear to take any issue with this.

Adora, meanwhile, was beside herself. Covertly, she pulled her cell phone from her back pocket and held it up, low in her lap, before selecting the camera app.

“You know, in actual Greek mythology,” Catra said lazily, “it was Hera who sent the snakes after Hercules, not Hades.”

Pearl grunted in a noncommittal way as she watched Hercules slice countless heads off the Hydra. She snuggled closer into Catra’s bicep, pulling her mermaid tighter.

“Yep. Because Hera wasn’t Hercules’s mother, and she was jealous that Zeus had knocked up a mortal woman.”

“Catra, stop,” Adora said, trying her best to look stern (and, if the way her lips twitched was any indication, failing).

Catra looked up to say something, then froze. Her jaw dropped. “Are you taking a picture of me right now?”

“A video,” Adora replied, unable to keep her smile restrained any longer. “You’re being so cute.”

“I am not cute!” Catra protested.

“Shush!” Pearl held her finger to her lips and shot Catra a furrowed brow. “No loud!”

Catra held her hands up in submission, then said snidely to Adora, “Turn that off or I’ll tell her what Hercules does to Meg in the Greek version.”

Adora cocked her head to the side. “Why? What does he do to her?”

Catra grinned wickedly and, above Pearl’s head, dragged her fingernail across her throat.  
“Jesus,” Adora said. “Yeah, go ahead and tell Pearl that while this is still filming. I’m sure Mermista would love to see it.”

Catra’s smile dropped, and a second later she was on her feet. “Stop the camera.”

“No,” Adora responded cheekily.

“Adora,” Catra scolded, stepping around the ottoman and holding out her hands. “Gimme the phone.”

“No!”

Catra lunged for it, and Adora dropped her hands to her hips and curled her knees over her abdomen. “Adora!” Catra cried, laughing. “Stop! Give me the phone!”

“No!” Adora giggled back as Catra’s hands wriggled around her sides to try to pry her hands up. “This is my rightful property! And I’ll also remind you that we live in a single-party consent state, which allows the recording of a person so long as—”

“Oh, my god, shut up with the legal bullshit!”

“Oh! bad word!”

“Bad word!” Pearl echoed from where she’d been abandoned on the other end of the couch.

“Adora!” Catra cried again, as Adora jerked to the side to bury her hands between her torso and the couch. Catra heaved a great sigh, and then Adora felt a weight settle itself on her lower back as Catra’s knees tucked just below Adora’s elbows. “I’m straddling you now. Are you happy? Are you pleased your immaturity got us here?”

“Fucking delighted,” Adora grunted.

Catra chuckled. “I’m not getting up until you say uncle.”

Adora opened her mouth to reply that she’d be happy to have Catra straddling her for all eternity, but she wasn’t given that embarrassing opportunity before Pearl’s voice piped up once more.

“Bad word!” Pearl announced, and then dug her tiny fingers into the exposed side of Adora’s neck.

At once, Adora’s lungs seized, and she tried to crawl away, pressing herself further into the back of the couch. Between bouts of uncontrollable laughter, she pleaded, “Pearl—Pearl—not fair!”

“Are you ticklish?” Catra said—and, if Adora could have seen her, she knew she would be smirking like the cat who got the canary.

Adora ruined her lie by stuttering. “N—no!”

Immediately, Catra’s fingers joined Pearl’s in their assault of Adora’s neck. “A weakness! I can’t believe it!”

“I’m—I’m serious! I’ll kick—kick you off!”

“You wouldn’t dare. I’m schlepping precious cargo over here.”

“Stop!”

“Nuh uh! Say it!” Catra shouted jubilantly.

“Uncle!” Adora barked in a strangled kind of way. “Fine! Uncle!”

At once, Catra withdrew. Pearl took a bit longer, but Catra chided her with a firm, “Quit it, kid, you’ll kill her.” She then slid off Adora’s back and slumped onto the seat next to her.

As Adora pushed herself up, she said wearily, “I’m gonna get you for that.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m fucking terrified,” Catra said, blowing a loose hair off her face and looking wildly skeptical.

“Bad word!” Pearl yelled with abject glee, and then dove headlong into Catra’s midsection.

“Whoa!” Adora pulled Pearl off Catra and onto her own lap. “You can’t do that, Pearl, you’ll hurt her!”

“Relax, I’m okay!” Catra ran her hands down her stomach, righting her sweater. “No harm done.”

“Still, though,” Adora said with a grimace. To Pearl, whose face was beginning to crumple a bit, Adora explained, “It’s all right, but you need to be careful. No roughhousing.”

“B—but,” Pearl mumbled over her quivering bottom lip. “You play!”

“You can play!” Adora assured her, rubbing her hand across Pearl’s shoulders. “But you need to be gentle with Catra, okay?”

“Why?”

Throwing an exasperated look to Catra over Pearl’s head, Adora said, “Because Catra has a baby inside of her. And the baby is too little to play like that. Oh, Pearly girl—” Adora pulled Pearl into a hug as the toddler dissolved into tears. “What’s the matter, huh?”

“I d—don’t wanna h—hurt!” Pearl wailed into Adora’s chest.

Adora sighed, but before she could say anything, Catra cut in. “You didn’t hurt me, Pearl. Or the baby. We’re okay, okay? Stop crying.”

Pearl didn’t.

Rolling her eyes to the ceiling, Catra groaned, “Pearl, come here.”

Much to Adora’s surprise, Pearl did pull away from the shelter of her arms, twisting so that she could face Catra. Wordlessly, Catra held out her hand. Pearl took it, and Catra pulled up her sweater and pressed Pearl’s hand to her stomach.

Pearl hiccuped. “Baby?”

“Yeah, that’s the baby.” Catra smiled uncharacteristically softly. “They’re asleep. If you’d hurt them, they’d be awake. So it’s okay. Okay?”

Pearl looked to the television screen and back again. Her eyes still shone bright with tears, but they no longer spilled over, and those that had washed down her cheeks were steadily drying, leaving tracks. Pearl pointed to the TV with her free hand and asked, “Baby? Like Huh-kleez?”

“Uh,” Catra said, squinting her eyes. “Sure.”

Finally, Pearl smiled, her tiny baby teeth on full display. She dipped forward to place a clumsy, ginger kiss on top of Catra’s protruding stomach. “Hi, Huh-kleez.”

Adora had to press her hand to her mouth to hide her exaltant grin. Catra, meanwhile, rolled her eyes. “That’s not the baby’s name,” she said. Then, suddenly, she looked to Adora with a cringe. “Right?”

Adora shook her head quickly. “Oh, god, no. No way.”

Pearl looked up to Adora, wiping the last of her tears away with her little fist. “What’s baby’s name?”

It was Adora’s turn to say, “Uh.” With a tilt of her chin, she said, “They don’t have a name yet.”

Pearl began flapping her hands in the air. “Oh! I name!”

Adora smiled hesitantly. “Oh, I don’t know about that. . .”

Ignoring her, Pearl reached behind herself to grab her mermaid toy. Holding it up like a trophy, she declared, “Fin!” She then hugged it to her chest. “Fin my baby.” Then, patting Catra’s stomach, Pearl explained, “Fin your baby.”

“I’m sensing a theme with your family’s naming methods, Pearl,” Catra commented under her breath.

Adora gave Catra a pointed look before smiling at Pearl again. “Maybe, Pearl,” she said. Then she pointed to the TV. “Look! The Muses are back! You like the Muses.”

The distraction was ineffective. Pearl stood on the couch cushion and, using the back of the couch for leverage, began jumping up and down like she was on a trampoline. “Fin! Fin! Fin!”

“Now look what you did,” Catra said, smirking and crossing her arms over her chest.

“Look what I did?” Adora laughed. “How is this my fault?”

“Fin! Fin! Fin! Fin! Fi—”

“Pearl, do you want ice cream?”

Pearl stopped jumping at once, her curls bouncing a bit as her head snapped to the side, her full attention on Adora now. “Ice cream?” she repeated.

Adora nodded. “Ice cream. But only for good girls who stop jumping and go put on their shoes.”

In a flash, Pearl was gone, collecting the shoes that she’d dropped by the front door. Catra, meanwhile, laughed her squeaky laugh. “That’s great parenting. Kid acting like a lunatic? Give them a treat!”

“Hey,” Adora chuckled as she rose to her feet. “She’s not my kid. I’m in aunt territory right now. Aunts get to do whatever they want.”

Catra patted her stomach. “So baby Fin over here is really gonna get the short end of that stick, aren’t they?”

“Ugh, don’t start with that.”

“What?” Catra said, pushing herself off the couch cushion. “It’s the best one we’ve heard so far.”

“I am not naming my kid after my niece’s favorite stuffie.”

“I don’t know. Add an extra n, and you’ve got a normal name right there.”

A familiar warmth blossomed in Adora’s stomach, and she fixed Catra with a soft-yet-shrewd gaze. “Do you really like that name? Finn?”

Catra hesitated, then stepped away, grabbing the television remote from the ottoman to pause the movie. “Pssh, it’s not like I care,” she said—sounding perhaps a bit forced to Adora’s ears, her smile a bit tight. “I’m just saying it’s better than Willow’s Breeze, or whatever other crunchy-ass name you’d come up with.”

Before Adora could form a reply, Pearl skidded back into the room and held her shoes out to Adora. “Help!” she requested, shaking the sandals by their velcro straps. “Dora! Please help!”

Catra snorted. “Dora.”

“Shut up,” Adora returned, settling Pearl on the couch and crouching to her knees to wiggle the first of Pearl’s feet into her sandals. “I don’t suppose you have time for an ice-cream trip, do you? Or—” She frowned and spared a glance to the watch on her wrist. “No, I guess it’s almost seven, isn’t it? Is Scorpia on her way?”

Catra paused. “Oh, uh, actually she just texted me. She’s running a half-hour late.” A grin spread across her face as she said, “I think I can make it. But—” She held her finger in the air as she moved towards the hallway to her bedroom. “—you will owe me big time.”

“Oh, really?” Adora asked, strapping the second sandal around Pearl’s thin ankle. “Let me guess: I’ll return the favor of having your company by buying your ice cream?”

“Bingo,” Catra said with a wink.

“Deal,” Adora said, standing upright and helping Pearl to do the same. “Now hurry up and get your shoes before Pearl has a conniption.”

In the back, Pearl kicked her legs against her carseat while she dove face-first into her plastic cup of vanilla-chocolate swirl. In the front, Adora held her hand in front of her face so she wouldn’t spit out hers.

“And so,” Catra wheezed, her own wrist pressed against her lips, her free hand clutching her milkshake, “Double Trouble, like, doubled down, threw the homeowner’s own mink coat over their shoulder, and proceeded to try to convince the cop that she had crashed their party.”

“Oh, my god,” Adora laughed, digging another scoop of ice cream even as her shoulders convulsed. “That’s so ballsy!”

“It was a last-ditch effort,” Catra said with a shrug, taking the opportunity to sip on her milkshake. “Didn’t work, obviously. We got arrested, probation, reparations—the whole deal. Only one night in jail, though, before Scorpia could scrounge up the money for bail.”

“Wow.”

“Help!” came Pearl’s little call from the backseat. Adora looked at her from the rearview mirror. Ice cream was steadily dripping down Pearl’s hand, splattering her carseat and the leather beneath it.

“Oh, jeez,” Adora said, unbuckling her seatbelt to twist around in her seat, but Catra beat her to it.

Plucking a stack of napkins from where Adora had stashed them in the cup holder, Catra said, “I got you, kid, hold on.” She then proceeded to uncap the cup of water she’d ordered, dipped a napkin in it, and wiped down Pearl’s forearm. “Jesus, Pearl,” Catra grunted. “You’re supposed to use the spoon, you know.”

Adora watched, and that warm blossoming in her stomach from earlier reappeared, this time radiating through her chest.

“There you go,” Catra said eventually, settling back in her chair and tossing the used napkins into a plastic bag at her feet. “This kid is gonna need a bath, though.” She retrieved her milkshake from the dashboard and, as she leaned forward to pucker her lips around its straw, paused. Narrowing her eyes, Catra asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Adora blinked. “Like what?”

“Like I—I don’t know,” Catra said flippantly, transferring her gaze out the windshield, her cheeks going a bit red. “Like I just, like, hung the moon for you, or something.”

“Poetic.”

Catra cracked a smile. “Shove it.”

Recovering as best as she could manage, Adora smirked. “I certainly didn’t want to get an ice-cream mess all over myself. You did me a favor, that’s all.”

“Uh huh,” Catra said, grinning into her milkshake.

Feeling a little bolder in the dim light of the car, illuminated by only a street light two spaces away from them in the parking lot, Adora added, “Plus, you’re good with her. Surprisingly. I like that.”

“Oh, you do?”

“Yeah.” Adora looked at Pearl in the rearview mirror again, who was deep in concentration over separating the chocolate ice cream from the vanilla. “Like I said earlier, Pearl’s my little buddy. It makes me happy when she finds people she likes.”

Catra rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but I’m sure she likes everyone.”

“She doesn’t, I swear.”

“Uh huh.”

“No, really,” Adora said, leaning her elbow onto the center console between them. “She hates Glimmer. Or—” Adora frowned a little, took another bite of ice cream. “Hate’s a strong word. But she’s picky. She loves Bow, but I think Glimmer’s, like, a little loud for her.”

Catra nodded sagely. “Pearl and I have that in common.”

“Even Bow, though,” Adora trucked on, barely taking the time to shoot Catra an admonishing glance. “It took a lot of patience for him to wait for Pearl to warm up to him.”

“Did you have that problem?”

Adora shook her head. “Nah. I don’t know why, but Pearl got used to me pretty much immediately.”

Catra hummed. “You have that effect on people.”

“Oh, do I?”

Catra just rolled her eyes again, harder. “Shut up, I don’t like you!”

“I didn’t say you did!”

There was a buzzing sound then, amplified by the source’s placement in the cupholder where Adora threw loose change. Catra reached for her phone and squinted at it.

“Is that Scorpia?” Adora asked, trying not to sound as crestfallen as she felt. “Is she on her way?”

“No, actually,” Catra responded, tapping away at her phone before tucking it underneath her thigh. “She, uh, backed out. Not feeling well, I guess.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that!” Adora said, not feeling that sorry at all. “Do you think you’re still gonna go?”

Catra barked out a crude laugh. “You think I’m gonna go speed-dating, on Valentine’s Day, five months pregnant and by myself? No freakin’ thank you.”

Adora smiled sympathetically (or, at least, she hoped it came across as sympathetic rather than self-satisfied). “I’m sorry your night got wrecked.”

“Please, I was only gonna go to support Scorpia anyway. No skin off my nose.”

As Catra tucked back into her milkshake, Adora examined her carefully. She thought, perhaps, that she might find some hint of disappointment on Catra’s features, some kind of confirmation that, no, Catra’s ideal Valentine’s Day was not to spend it in a parking lot with her roommate and a sticky toddler. Adora didn’t find any such confirmation, though. Rather, Catra looked quite relaxed as she uncapped her milkshake and tipped it back to drain its last dregs. When she pulled her cup away, she had a streak of whipped cream on the shelf of her upper lip.

“You have a moustache,” Adora said without thinking, tapping her own lip.

The tip of Catra’s tongue poked out and swiped it away.

Adora could’ve died right there.

“Me!” came Pearl’s voice from the back, and Adora was grateful for the distraction as she checked the rearview mirror to find that the entire bottom half of Pearl’s face was painted with ice cream.

“Oh, my god,” Adora moaned.

Catra shook her head. “Not it.”

“Bath time, I think. Let’s go home, ladies,” Adora announced, tossing her now-empty cup into the plastic bag. As she shifted her car into reverse, though—throwing her arm behind the passenger seat and glancing out the back window—she caught Catra smiling at her. It was astonishing, almost, how it crinkled the edges of Catra’s eyes without being so wide as to show her teeth. Adora felt stunned being the object of that smile’s attention. “What?” she asked eventually. “Is there something on my face now?”

The smile waned, and Catra turned away with a snort. “No, dummy. You’re perfect as usual.”

An hour later found Pearl bathed, dressed in jammies, and curled against Adora’s side on her bed as Adora paged through a picture book. “What’s this, Pearl?”

“Kitty,” Pearl said, placing her hand over the spot Adora was pointing.

“No, but close. It’s a mongoose. Can you say mongoose?”

“Mongoose.”

“That’s great!” Adora breathed. She shifted her face so she could kiss the side of Pearl’s head. Pearl’s still-damp hair clung to Adora’s lips, and she blew a halfhearted raspberry.

Pearl blew one, too. Then, with Adora’s help, she turned the page. “Snake,” Pearl said, jabbing her finger at the book.

“Yeah, a cobra. That’s a kind of snake. They’re scary.”

Pearl cocked her chin to the side. “Huh-kleez?”

“Yes! Just like in Hercules.” Adora shook her head. “I can’t believe how smart you are.”

“Smart like Mama.”

Adora grinned. “Just like your Mama. Did your Daddy tell you that?”

Pearl nodded, then frowned thoughtfully. “I miss Daddy. And Mama.”

“Yeah?” Adora asked, leaning her cheek onto the crown of Pearl’s head. “Do you wanna send them a picture and say hi?”

Pearl nodded again with a little whine. Carefully, Adora extracted the picture book from Pearl’s grasp and placed it on the bedside table. She took her phone off its charger and opened the camera app.

“You have to smile, Pearly!” Adora instructed. When Pearl didn’t, she lightly dug her fingers into Pearl’s neck.

Pearl cracked a giggle then, ducking away from Adora’s hand, and said, “Unca!”

“Okay, okay. But say cheese.” Adora held up her phone and centered her and Pearl together in the frame. “Ready?”

“Cheese!” Pearl said around her laughter, and Adora snapped the picture. Adora held her phone closer to Pearl to show her, and Pearl nodded.

“Looks good, huh?” Adora agreed, and she sent it off in a group chat to Mermista and Sea Hawk. _She’s missing you_ , she texted. _But otherwise doing great!_

There was a knock at Adora’s bedroom door.

“You can come in,” Adora called, unable to sit up for Pearl’s weight on her shoulder.

Catra’s head popped around the door, and she held up Pearl’s mermaid. “I found this in the bathroom. Figured maybe someone would want it for bed.”

“Fin!” Pearl cried, holding her hands out for the toy.

With a grin, Catra stepped into the room. As she walked to the bed to hand off the mermaid, Adora asked, “You going to bed?”

Catra shrugged as Pearl took the mermaid from her. Her now-empty hand went to toy absentmindedly with the drawstring of her flannel pajama pants. “Nah, not yet. They’re awake. That’s gonna keep me up for a while.”

“Picture!” Pearl announced. She scooted to the end of the mattress and grabbed Catra’s free hand, tugging her closer. Pearl looked over her shoulder to Adora and asked, “Picture?”

“Uh,” Adora said before scratching at her earlobe. To Catra, she explained, “Pearl and I just took a picture to send to her parents. Do you want to. . . ?”

Catra blinked. “Oh. Okay.” She put one knee on Adora’s bed before she stopped. “Is this weird?”

Adora shrugged. “It’s okay. I don’t care if you’re on my bed.”

“Of course you don’t, perv.” With a smirk, Catra crawled fully onto the mattress and settled herself on Pearl’s other side. “Okay. Picture time.”

Pearl tucked herself back against Adora’s side, but then reached behind her to pull Catra’s arm closer, grunting wordlessly.

“Yeah, yeah, I get the idea,” Catra said before winding her arm around Pearl’s middle. This put Catra’s head very near Adora’s shoulder—and Adora’s heart stuttered in response. “Okay,” Catra continued on, unawares. “Cheese?”

Pearl grinned wide. “Cheese!”

Adora held the phone up once more and took the picture before pulling it in for her companions’ inspection. Catra and Adora framed Pearl, who had one hand clutching her mermaid and the other clutching Catra’s forearm. Catra looked relaxed, even content.

“Why do I look so anxious?” Adora asked, chuckling at the nervous slant of her own brow.

Catra scoffed. “Stop, you look great.”

Adora, unable to help herself, made a lascivious face at Catra, complete with toothy smirk. As a reply, Catra flipped her off, doing so behind Pearl’s head so she couldn’t see.

A buzzing in Adora’s hand announced an incoming text. Opening it, she discovered a picture of Mermista and Sea Hawk—both of whom were not-quite-tastefully covered by their quilted comforter, Mermista having pulled it up to her collar bone and Sea Hawk letting it drape over his midsection. Sea Hawk sported a dopey, ear-to-ear kind of grin, and even Mermista looked a bit less volatile than usual.

 _Ugh, she looks just like Sea Hawk when she’s all smiley like that. Such a betrayal_ , Mermista texted. _Here’s a G-rated picture, tell her we love her and miss her a lot._

“Oh, gross,” Catra said, peering over Adora’s shoulder. “We get it, they’re getting some.”

“Catra,” Adora scolded offhandedly. At the same time, she typed back, _That’s PG-13 at least._

“Mama!” Pearl giggled as she grabbed Adora’s wrist, her head tilted all the way up to see. “Daddy!”

“Yep.” Adora said, angling the phone closer to Pearl. “They say they love you.”

Pearl grinned and replied, “Love you.” Then she swiped at Adora’s phone with her entire palm. “Huh-kleez?”

Catra chuckled. “Fickle, girl. Lovin’ it.”

In reply, Adora rolled her eyes halfheartedly as she took the phone from Pearl, tapped into the movie app, and pressed play.

“I wanna hold!”

“Okay.” Adora handed the phone back and reclined further onto her pillows. “Knock yourself out.”

With a sigh, Catra pushed herself up. “Okay, well. I’m gonna head out. G’night.”

Before Adora could say good night in return, though, Pearl had reached back to tug at Catra’s t-shirt. “Movie!” she declared.

Catra hesitated. With a nervous glance at Adora, she responded, “Nah, Pearl, I’ve gotta—”

Without another word, Pearl twisted back to return her full attention to the movie, her fist keeping a tight hold of Catra’s shirt.

With a tortured sigh, Catra settled back in.

Adora pursed her lips, for the umpteenth time that night, to restrain her smile. “Now look who’s giving in.”

“Shut up,” Catra lobbed over Pearl’s head.

With another not-wholly-innocent smirk, Adora added, “And I thought you said it’d be hard to get you into bed. . .”

Catra’s eyes went wide, and her lips quirked over her responding gasp. “Shut up, idiot, before I hit you with your own pillow.”

Chortling, Adora settled back in, wrapping her arm around Pearl’s shoulders and, in doing so, brushing her hand against Catra’s bicep. Totally unintentionally. Of course. “Happy Valentine’s Day, wifey.”

After a scoff and an extra moment’s hesitation, Catra replied, “Yeah, yeah. You, too.”

Adora rose later than usual the following morning to the unfamiliar sensation of a body pressed against her. Her automatic response was to snuggle in closer and take a deep whiff of the hair against which her nose was pressed. The light powder-and-banana scent of Pearl’s baby shampoo was not the scent that greeted her, however. Rather, she inhaled a heady smell that was more akin to a men’s body spray, some cross between pine needles and something kind of smokey. Adora’s eyes snapped open, then, and saw with a sickening swoop of her stomach that her arms were tightly wrapped around Catra’s ribs, her forearm resting just above the incline of her stomach.

Catra, meanwhile, was in much the same position that Adora had mistakenly thought she was in upon waking; that is, spooning Pearl’s small form, the crown of the toddler’s head tucked gently under Catra’s chin. The pair slept soundly on, breathing deeply and blissfully unaware of Adora’s most recent humiliation. The image swiftly softened that cold sense of dread in Adora, though—so much so that Adora didn’t immediately pull away, as was her first instinct. Instead, she glided the palm of her hand down Catra’s belly, pressing gently right beneath her belly button and slightly to the left. She still couldn’t feel the thrumming vibration of life in there, but she could feel something like that picking up in her own chest. The feeling only intensified when Catra released a sleepy sigh and, obviously still dreaming, moved her hand to rest on top of Adora’s.

 _This is so creepy_ was a thought that occurred to Adora much, much later than was appropriate. But, still, it came eventually, and finally—albeit hesitantly—Adora slid her hand out from under Catra’s and backed away. She sat up, propped her elbows onto her knees, and sighed shakily into her hands. After a couple seconds of that, she reached back to retrieve her phone from the nightstand.

What’d she’d intended to do was text Glimmer, or Bow, or both, with the goal of sending out the ultimate call for help. You were right, she’d meant to text. SOS. May day. Help.

What happened instead, though, was that Adora discovered a very much unanticipated text from an unidentified number.

_Good morning! This is Catra’s friend Scorpia!_

Adora’s heart sank. She was going to get her ass kicked, one hundred percent.

But she read on:

_Sorry to bother you, but Catra hasn’t texted me back since last night. I know she wasn’t feeling well, so I wanted to ask you whether she was okay. If I send her one more text, I’m scared she’ll block me lol._

With a tilt of her head, Adora texted back, _You’re fine! And she’s totally okay, still sleeping. She told you she wasn’t feeling well, though?_

In mere seconds—Scorpia must’ve had her phone ready in her hand—Adora received a reply.

_Yeah, we were supposed to go out last night, but she texted me first telling me that she was running late, and then cancelled entirely at the last minute. Which is fine! I care more about Catra’s health than having a wingman! And it ended up that I didn’t need one anyway. ;)_

Adora barely had time to process that text before a new one followed.

_Sorry, I’m rambling. Catra hates that lol. But anyway, I’m glad to hear my Wildcat’s okay! Can I bring anything for her? I’ve got plans this afternoon, but I could stop by right after work!_

Adora blinked and looked sideways at Catra. Completely unable to help herself, she smiled. _That’s okay_ , Adora replied, biting her lip and trying not to concentrate on the renewed humming sensation behind her sternum. _I’ve got her._

“So, how was she? Be honest.”

Standing at the edge of her driveway, Adora chuckled. “Honestly, she was great. We had a great time.”

Mermista, who was bouncing Pearl on her hip as Pearl chattered away nonsensically, narrowed her eyes. “Uh huh. Baby mama included?”

Adora looked over her own shoulder to where Catra stood behind her, standing on one foot as she scratched a toe against her ankle. Adora smiled wide. “Yeah, I think so. Right?”

Catra rolled her eyes. “It was. . . Kind of fun. Yeah. But whatever.”

“Whatever,” Mermista agreed, the shadow of a friendly smile stretching across her face.

Sea Hawk rejoined them, clapped his hands together as he announced, “Carseat’s ready to roll! Shall we, my dearest?”

“Whatever,” Mermista said again, handing the baby off to Sea Hawk as she pulled the car keys from his fingers. “Thanks, guys,” she added to Adora and Catra as she stepped towards the car.

While Sea Hawk buckled Pearl into her seat, he asked her, “Now what do we say to Miss Adora and Miss Catra?”

Peering around her father, Pearl grinned toothily at the pair at the end of the driveway. “Love you!” she called.

At once, Adora’s eyes watered, and Catra made some kind of funny choking sound. But Sea Hawk laughed heartily. “Yes, that. But can you say thank you?”

“Oh,” Pearl said, nodding. Then again to Adora and Catra, “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” Adora replied and, as soon as Sea Hawk secured the final belt across Pearl’s shoulders, stepped forward to blow a raspberry into Pearl’s neck. “Love you, too, Pearly girl.”

Pearl squealed in delight, but pushed Adora away by her cheek. As Adora backed up, Pearl waved to Catra. “Bye, kitty! Bye, Fin!”

Catra, lips pursed over a barely concealed smile of her own, gave Pearl a lackadaisical wave in return. “See ya, kid.”

The door was closed, Sea Hawk presented the pair with a dramatic, parting salute, and soon enough he, Mermista, and Pearl were driving away, retreating down the cul de sac, and turning the corner out of sight.

Alone now, Adora turned to Catra. They’d exchanged a few words since Catra had woken, but none were in reference to Adora’s highly untoward behavior or to Catra’s misstatement of events from the night before. Of course, Catra was (hopefully) ignorant of the former, and at least ignorant of Adora’s knowledge of the latter. But still. Something had shifted that morning, having done so in such a significant manner as to render Adora dumb—or, at least, dumber than usual—stranding her anchorless in the sea of unknown what-comes-next-isms.

“I’m gonna check the mail,” Adora said eventually, hooking her thumb over her shoulder.

Catra nodded, seemingly in the same awkward boat that Adora was in—though for what reason, Adora couldn’t be sure. “Sounds good,” Catra said as she twirled the string on her flannel pants nervously between her fingers. “I’ll, uh, wait up then.”

“Okay.” As she walked the five extra steps to the mailbox, Adora’s mind buzzed. Was Catra actually awake earlier, when Adora had first woken up? Had Scorpia told Catra about texting Adora, and was she now aware that her metaphorical jig was up? Or was it the simple fact that she’d spent the night in Adora’s bed—which was, to the best of Adora’ information, not a wholly normal thing for surrogates to do with their children’s intended parents? Adora breathed deep, exhaled a shaky sigh, and repeated the routine again as she pulled a single letter out of the mailbox and closed it again with a shuddering squeak.

Nothing’s changed, she reprimanded herself internally. Catra is still Catra. Roommate slash platonic mother of your child. Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s—

“What’s that?”

Adora froze midstep. She hadn’t been speaking out loud, had she? But Catra was pointing at the envelope clutched in Adora’s fist. No, thank god.

“Oh,” Adora said finally, releasing her grip and surveying the envelope in her hand. It was thick, like her electric bill tended to be, what with all the notices regarding how to prepare for the summer’s monsoon season or the pros of installing solar panels on her roof. But it wasn’t from her electric company. In an elegant, hand-written script, Shadow Weaver’s name graced the return-address corner. “Oh!” Adora said again, gasping for air, as she pushed the envelope into Catra’s hand instead.

Catra’s face screwed up in confusion and then, upon reading Shadow Weaver’s name, slackened in abject shock. She peered around herself, turning almost completely in a circle as she explained, “There’s no stamp.”

Adora opened her mouth to ask what that meant before she realized it for herself. No stamp meant it wasn’t the post office that delivered it. Instantly, she joined Catra in scanning the neighborhood, taking extra care to examine the shadows around tree trunks, bushes, or other places behind which it would be very easy to hide. “She can’t still be here, can she? I mean, I don’t see a car. But I wonder. . .” Looking back to Catra, she realized that her face had gone a tad pale. She looped her arm around Catra’s elbow and—ignoring the way Catra jumped at the contact—said, “Let’s go inside, okay?”

Catra hesitated, then nodded wordlessly and allowed Adora to lead her through the house and into the kitchen. There, Adora pulled a butter knife from one of the drawers and extended her empty hand to Catra, who immediately got the hint and handed the envelope over again. Adora sliced it open and, with shaking fingers, pulled two items from it.

The first was the contract—the original, apparently, as the blue ink of her signature bled through the back of the final page. In the middle of the top piece of paper was a large, red, rubber-stamped VOID. Flicking through the contract with her thumb, Adora found the same marker on every page. “I’ll be damned,” Adora muttered, looking to Catra with a furrowed brow. “She did it. She let us go.”

But Catra wasn’t listening, as it was clear her attention was solely focused on the second item. After a second, Catra met Adora’s eyes, and twisted her wrist to show the front of the little slip of paper to her.

“Holy shit,” Adora said, lunging forward to pluck the check—because that’s what it was, a check—from Catra’s fingers. The check was made out to Catra, and in no small amount. “Holy shit,” Adora said again, gaping. “Is that the rest of your birth expenses?”

“Seems like it,” Catra said in a voice that was normal in volume but, perhaps, a little shaky.

“Wow. I mean—yeah. Wow.”

“I know.” Catra dropped her gaze to the floor then and added, “I guess this means I should get out of your hair soon.”

Adora’s jaw, which had been hanging up, closed with an audible click of her teeth. “What, why? Why would you do that?”

Catra looked up and blinked. “I mean, this is more than enough money to find myself a place, right? And a car.” Catra shrugged and transferred her gaze to somewhere behind Adora’s right ear. Smirking, she said, “I’m sure you’ve had enough of me invading your space, right?”

“No,” Adora said—a little more forcefully than intended, if Catra’s tiny flinch was any indication. “I mean,” she corrected, softer, and with an outstretched hand, trepidatiously offering Catra the check back. “Listen, I understand if you want to leave. But I don’t want you to feel, like, rushed. Or anything.”

Catra’s eyes met Adora’s again, and narrowed only slightly. “Really?”

“Really.” Adora shrugged. “I don’t know. I. . . kind of like that you’re here? And, like, I know that us being roommates isn’t going to work long term once. . . you know.”

Catra smirked in a strangely sad way, and rested her hand on her bump—right where Adora’s hand had been earlier. “I know.”

“Yeah,” Adora said lamely, forcing her eyes away from Catra’s hand. “But. . . I don’t know. Stay as long as you like. Don’t feel like you need to go apartment hunting today, okay? Just, like, take your time.”

Slowly, Catra nodded. “Okay. I mean, obviously I’m gonna start looking soon.”

“Obviously,” Adora agreed with a halfhearted scoff. “But just wait for the right place to come along. You know. You do have, like, four more months at least.”

“Four months. Yep.” Catra’s smirk softened, turning into that small smile that Adora had come to search for recently. “That should be plenty.”

_HELP!_

_What, what’s wrong??_

_GLIMMER WAS RIGHT!!_

Bow’s sigh could practically be heard over text. _Adora, there is a much better way to tell us that then sending us a HELP text completely out of context._

 _I KNEW IT,_ Glimmer replied.

 _To clarify,_ Bow cut in as Glimmer’s ellipses bubble popped up again, _this is about Adora being obviously in love with Catra, right?_

Adora hesitated, then peered over her shoulder. There was nobody within ten feet of the locker she’d just shoved her gym bag into—and almost certainly nobody in the building that would know Adora or Catra, or give a single shit about this crisis. Still, though, Adora checked again.

In the time it took for her to turn back to her phone, though, Glimmer texted back. _YES!!_

Adora sighed.

Bow’s reply popped up. _Cool. Adora, where are you at right now?_

_Gym._

_Done soon?_

_Just got here._

_Get back in your car_ , Glimmer texted. _Come to our place._

Adora blinked at the screen. _What? Why?_

 _We’re making mimosas and a game plan_ , Glimmer responded.

With a winky emoji, Bow added, _See you in ten._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two month wait between chapter updates? in return you get an 18k-word, babysitting, bed-sharing, protective gf monstrosity. ty for you patience (especially in light of the fact that a long break will almost certainly happen again)

**Author's Note:**

> find me as mkandas on tumblr to ask questions (e.g., "what is your mind," "why did you write this," "why did you think we wanted you to write this," etc.) and get updates


End file.
